The Destruction of the Shield
by Nyx6
Summary: Lauren has made her choice to stand with The Shield rather than Hunter and both life and her relationship with Dean are going well. But we all know what happened on June 2nd 2014 and she is about to find out too. Life as she knows it is about to change forever. What exactly is a clumsy and chaotic girl supposed to do! Part 7 of the 'Who Do You Love' series.
1. Bitch Slap

**Here we are again then folks and yes, this is the big one in terms of changing the dynamic up. Hopefully though, I've done it in such a way that it isn't too heartbreaking but still moves things along. Shall we get into it then?**

 **But before we do, to all those still with me and this little couple, THANK YOU so, so much. These stories are keeping me sane right now and Lauren and Dean in particular, so to know that others love them like I do means the world!**

 **Okay, _now_ let's go!**

* * *

 **Bitch Slap**

Right from the very first moment I had met them, the guys had been attack dogs and real company men, who had pretty much done what their bosses had ordered and so therefore had never been in the place to make heaps of friends.

It hadn't really bothered me greatly back in the early months since I'd been new to everything and essentially flying high. Because not only had I had a squeaky new boyfriend but I'd also had a squeaky new dad, which had made it feel like I'd had more than I had dreamed of –

I didn't need the wider roster to fall in love with me as well.

I mean, not saying that I wouldn't have _liked_ it but Dean and the guys had never seemed fussed and since I had taken my cue from them in most things, I had never set about bombarding the talent with my charm.

Wow.

Had _that_ been a mistake of epic proportions? Because as it turned out, hanging with other brawlers was fun and something that was evidently open to the boys now, thanks to their new mindset and anti-establishment line of attack. No longer were they out on the cold fringes of the locker room and stalking the halls scattering people left and right. Instead they were pretty much fully accepted, albeit with a hint of caution since they still tended to bite.

Dean especially –

Particularly _down there_.

I blushed a little and then snorted into the bottle of my condensation-covered beer, which then promptly almost shot the liquid from my nostrils and sent me coughing clumsily. My boyfriend frowned across,

"Princess, you alright?"

I wiped my lips and nodded, still giggling a little because the thought of that had made me bite back a laugh and besides which I kind of liked the thought of him being all dog-like, growling at his reflection and scratching the door to go out.

"You would make a really good puppy."

He blinked at me and his bewildered blue eyes swept up and down, lingering a little on my scorching hot cheekbones and then raised an amused looking brow,

"Are you drunk right now?"

" _Noooo_."

My protest was far too outrageous however and not helped by the fact that I also waved my hands, in what I hoped would totally prove my sobriety but instead simply managed to slop beer across the seat.

Oops.

Dean grunted back and then blew a short breath out, which lightly ruffled the bangs of his hair, which he had been starting to wear longer and pulled forward over the last months but were still a little damp from the match they had won and from which he was still glassy eyed and vaguely limping.

Not that it surprised me.

He had been hit in the head and not just with a fist or spinning heel kick either, but with the hard metal top of a sledgehammer no less and one which had been wielded by the deeply estranged father that had kidnapped and held me captive nearly three long months back. During which time he had tried to make me give Dean up and his bastard of a prodigy had very nearly –

 _Nope_.

I took another chug from my bottle and fought the memory down, not even realizing that I had said the word out loud until Dean looked across at me with brows knitted in confusion,

"Princess, _nope_ what?"

Damn.

Okay, so perhaps I was a tiny little _touch_ drunk or possibly buzzed was a kinder sort of word, but either way my boyfriend was not giving up easily and so I leaned in towards him and tucked my head against his chin,

"Hello."

He snorted,

"Man you're wasted."

"Not m' not, m' jus' happy."

"Uh huh, that why you're slurrin' your words?"

I frowned in confusion as I drank in his question because to my ears my sentences were well rounded and clipped and so I turned to the other face sitting at our table and stuck my bottom lip out in a petty little huff,

"Roman, tell him m' not, uh – ,"

"Hammered?"

I snapped my fingers in his direction,

" _That's_ the one."

He chuckled,

"Baby girl I think you need water, in fact – that's it – I'm cutting you off."

Reaching across the table he swiped up my bottle which was one of several glasses and containers lying around and I tried to beat him to it but managed to miss completely, alongside being pretty categorically too slow.

" _Hey_."

"Princess, don't argue with the big dog."

Dean moved his lips and then kissed me on the head and his shower-damp hair tickled in across my temple and made me giggle softly and then heave out a breath. Realistically we weren't in the best place for sleeping, considering that we were camped out at a table in a club and the thumping background music was making my insides churn and we were surrounded by other wrestlers, but I felt happy so who cared? I snuggled myself down a little further into Dean's shoulder and then hummed at him wearily,

"M' glad you won tonight, didn't like you getting all hurt though."

It had been a unrelenting brutal sort of match and designed on the part of my father and his henchmen to pretty much break the three man faction apart, only luckily on that front they had failed completely because my boyfriend and his brothers were _better_ than that.

Dean grunted at me,

"Y' know I did it for you right? For all the fucked up shit that those damn assholes put you through?"

"Mmhmm, I know."

I raised my hand and grazed his cheekbone, laying my palm across it as he again kissed my head. Honestly the two of us could have been anywhere, but it quickly became evident again that we were not because somebody cleared their throat next to our table and drew our collective glances.

Huh?

I blinked up.

Rob Van Dam was standing beside us casting between his two former foes, wearing what looked like an uncertain smile of sorts and which for a moment made me wonder if he was going to talk shit to them in a move of pure suicide.

But he didn't do that.

"Hell of a performance you put in tonight boys."

Roman blinked up at him with laid back and accepting eyes, taking a casual sip from _my_ bottle which he then held in his direction like a silent toast,

"Thanks."

Dean stayed quiet but he wasn't tense or antsy and it made his chest soft as I burrowed inside, laying my head right up against his heartbeat and then shutting my eyes to its metronomic thud. Really it wasn't surprising that I was tired given the alcohol, not to mention the raw flood of relief. Watching my boyfriend and father going at it had been horrible and terrifying and gut-wrenching to say the least. Especially when Dean had fallen down heavily having taken the full force of the hammer to the head. Matty had practically had to physically restrain me from charging out amongst it to check for sure he wasn't dead and it wasn't until Roman had dragged himself over and woken him up that I had even drawn breath.

It had been a very _very_ long evening –

But my boys were okay and they were winners.

"Where's Seth?"

Blinking around suddenly and cutting through the chatter that had been carrying on lightly above my buzzing head, I stiffened in panic as I realized he was absent and then clutched my boyfriend's shirt front because it didn't feel right.

Dean stroked my back,

"He's at the bar orderin',"

"Oh," I frowned, "He's been a long time."

"Lotta people here."

"Maybe I should go and help him."

It wasn't a query so much as a plan and I quickly staggered up in a clumsy lurch of drunkenness that honestly was weird because I _so_ wasn't drunk. I managed to bang my battered boyfriend in the ribs though and he grunted a little which made me wince.

"Princess – ,"

"Oops, sorry."

I stumbled closer and kissed him apologetically in a big sloppy meeting that nearly melted our lips and then became deeper as I cupped his stubbled jawline and moaned against his mouth. He blinked in pleased surprise and then dropped his hand back to rest sweetly against my hip bone until his older brother coughed,

"Other people here."

"Oh, right."

I quickly straightened up again and then giggled pretty childlike at the totally dazed pleasure gracing my man's look. I tossed him a wink and then slid from the table before skipping across the floor in the direction of the bar and grinning even wider as I heard Rob chuckle with a wry sounding smile,

"Your girl's a wild one."

"Sure is."

Me, wild?

In actual fact I kind of liked that and was still lightly giggling as I made it to the bar, weaving between the hovering patrons and chirping my thanks at them as they stood aside to let me pass. Most of the other people clustered around the dance floor knew that a contingent of wrestlers were in and so therefore weren't keen to snub a member of the posse and potentially start a fight that they would never likely win.

 _Aha, there he is_.

Seth was stood at the far end and leant against a concrete column rising up out of the ground. The place we were at was sunken down into a basement and the thick supporting structures were dotted right around, giving the space a modern classic temple vibe that made it all funky and subterranean I supposed. He was peering at his phone and texting someone frantically and since it usually was, I assumed it was his girl, which was why I had no problem interrupting with a little bounce and flung out arms of greeting,

"Ta-da."

"Lauren? Geez – ,"

He fumbled away his cell phone rapidly and then blinked in surprise at my over the top stance, which I tried to hold like I was caught in a freeze frame but failed by wobbling all over the place.

"I came to help you bring all the drinks back."

"Yeah well, no more for you."

"Why not?"

"You're drunk."

I rolled my eyes like a sullen sixteen year old and then even threw my hands up and let loose a heated _ugh_ because why in the world did everyone keep saying that when I was patently as sober as the summer days were long?

"M' not, I promise."

I reached out a pinky as if to make an unbreakable seal and the man stood in front of me quirked a bushy eyebrow then nodded slowly.

"Uh huh, so I see."

Somewhere in front of us the bartender skated over, making his way along the patiently waiting line and Seth fished out his wallet in quick expectation before stepping in closer,

"What can I get you?"

"Three beers my man."

I held my fingers up hopefully behind him and then extended them right out over the bar, watching as the server sort of blinked in bewilderment at my sudden interjection.

"Um, he means _four_."

Seth slapped the money down and ignored me easily and much like I actually wasn't even there, which I totally _was_ since I was leant on his shoulder, mostly for support since my legs seemed weirdly numb.

"Keep it at three."

I frowned at him darkly,

"You guys are no fun."

"An' you're a pain in the ass."

"You love me really."

He didn't reply to that but I didn't need to hear it since I already knew he did and which he had totally proven by always being there for me and acting like the beloved older brother I'd never had. Roman too, they had both been so good to me and I loved the little family that I had at my side. Dean had a happy trait of picking good comrades and when all three of them were together it was like they ruled the world. As the bottles were put down, Seth quickly scooped up two of them and then pointed at the third one with meaning,

"Come on."

I took a quick sip and he blew a breath out at me but then turned to shoulder us a path through the throng, which he did with relatively unsurprising simplicity until a woman stepped in front of him with her hands on her hips. He stopped sort of dead and I crashed into the back of him, which slopped a puddle of beer across my thumb and I was right in the process of sucking it off hoover-like when high tones all but squealed at him,

"Seth Rollins, is that you?"

"Kaylee?"

"You remember."

It was clear from his reaction that he wasn't as thrilled as the newcomer was and feeling a swirling nosiness begin to take over me, I poked my head around him and then blinked at what I saw. The woman in front of us was not exactly lofty but was made a lot taller by her ginormous wedge heels which made her lightly tanned legs look utterly amazing and were further emphasized by a teeny tiny dress. It clung onto her _just_ but with a split so plunging that it almost revealed the special spot between her legs, thankfully coming back together moments before that but separating dramatically again at her breasts. Her boobs were like beachballs and I gaped at them a little because I wasn't really sure how the purple chiffon was hanging on and that was before I even got to her features which were a totally new part of the story in themselves.

Seth sucked a breath in,

"What are you doing here?"

He was trying to sound friendly but his sentence was clipped, like he had precious little interest in rehashing their old times, from which I sort of guessed that she was maybe an old hit. Not that she seemed to be his type exactly, although her long and beach wave curled black hair was admittedly pretty nice. As were her dark shadowed eyes and flawless make-up although I wasn't too sure about her matching cheek studs.

 _Um_.

Honestly I simply couldn't picture them together, which was probably because it turned out that the two of them never were and which became all apparent not two seconds later as she looked around the place like a dart,

"Is Dean here?"

Kaylee.

I frowned and something tickled across my brainstem as I tried my best to work out how my boyfriend factored in. I couldn't for the life of me fathom what was off with her and so keep mulling her familiar sounding name in my head.

 _Kaylee, Kaylee, Kaylee._

How did I know her?

Realisation hit me audibly,

"Oh – ,"

Dean had told me about girl from his training days who he had hooked up with on and off before being called up onto the show. He had said she had wanted to test out intimate sex positions and had tried to push their _thing_ beyond the casual hookup point. He had also told me that she had been the sort of person that he would have pounded bare on the hardwood floor but for me he laid out blankets and sheeting because I was a princess.

Hardwood Kaylee –

Holy hell.

In response to my tiny little gape of understanding, both Seth and my new nemesis spun themselves around and the raven haired woman tipped her head at me mildly and then drank me in scornfully,

"Is this your new girl?"

Her false looking smile didn't quite cut the mustard, which on second thoughts was a pretty weird thing to ever say since mustard was more of a spreadable item and so why would you need or want to cut it at all? Seth cleared his throat and drew me out of that headache at which point I realized that I was meant to be mad and so tightened my fists and tried to look menacing like I had learnt from _my_ boyfriend.

It didn't really work.

"No, no, this is just a friend of mine."

"Oh really?"

Seth nodded again and then took hold of my arm, trying to purposefully steer me back to our table only I blew his whole plan by hotly spinning around. It brought me in closer to _Hardwood Kaylee_ as the falsely grinning harpy would henceforth be known and also slopped even more beer out of the bottle which didn't really matter in the moment.

"Dean loves me."

In hindsight I probably could have been more coherent, or possibly even started by announcing who I was, but in my not-drunken state the words just seemed to fall out of me and were met by a sigh from a disgruntled sounding Seth,

"Great Lauren, that's just perfect."

I blinked at him,

"Thank you."

"No, I wasn't – ," he groaned and stopped short, which then let Hardwood Kaylee interject with a burst of laughter which was harsh, disbelieving and inherently cruel. At once I got the sense that had we been at school together, she would have been the uber bitchy stereotypical queen bee whose seeming life mission would have been making others miserable.

In short I didn't like her.

I didn't like her at all.

"You're Dean's girlfriend? You expect me to buy that?"

"Why not?" I couldn't help sounding a little like a kid, who had made her very own costume for the pageant then been told without flinching that it looked like hot shit. Only in this case the thing that clearly didn't look right wasn't some outfit but just generally _me_ and although I wanted to be pumped by the insult, instead I actually deflated a bit. My best friend Kelly would have straight up sucker punched her, but I had never been violent in the least.

Kaylee snorted,

"You're just so _boring_ – brown hair, a nice dress – there's nothing else going on."

Seth frowned,

"Hey – ,"

But the beer must have been working because instead of shrinking further I suddenly puffed up and let loose a sentence so totally unlike me that for the first time that evening I figured maybe I _was_ buzzed because I didn't even flinch as I leant in towards her and even smirked back a little,

"We have sex lying on our side."

To anyone listening – which I hoped wasn't many – the statement would probably have made very little sense but between us girls it resonated totally and I saw her dark eyes sort of flash and tense up. Back on Halloween when Las Vegas had seen a power cut, Dean had introduced me to a new way to make love, which had included the ridiculously intimate position of _doing the deed_ while we were stretched out and both lying over on our sides. That was the night he had told me about Kaylee and how she had intended for them to do the same thing only Dean had shut it down because he wasn't in love with her.

The implication therefore being that he _was_ in love with me.

I huffed in triumph and then jiggled a little because to me it felt like the ultimate burn and I was really bizarrely proud of having done it and for defending myself instead of taking it lying down.

Seth blinked at me,

"Uh, what the hell does _that_ mean? You know what, on second thoughts I don't want to know."

I opened my mouth like I was going to explain it but at that point my rival came back at me again, pulsating with fury which was totally my doing and poking my chest viciously,

"You think you're clever bitch?"

"Um – ,"

In my short but eventful twenty seven years of living, I couldn't recall having been called a _bitch_ before and in the moment I was so sort of weirdly thrown off by it that I merely gaped back at her in astonishment.

Not smart.

Because as Seth stepped between us to try and back her up a bit and clearly not wanting an actual fight to break out, Kaylee slipped her hands around his arm and shoved me and I stumbled backwards clumsily and dropped the beer bottle with a thud. It clattered to the floor and while it thankfully didn't shatter, the impact did blast the alcohol up and out and suds and liquids splattered right back at me and coated my legs and my dress.

That was it.

Many times in life I had been pushed around and bullied, including by my ex-boyfriend, the Wyatt family and even my dad. I had huddled and cried and then finally found solace in the hunky and burly arms of a man I truly loved. So what I did not need or deserve for that matter, was one of his former hookups trying to make me feel bad and as something in me snapped, I stomped in towards her, reeled back my hand and slapped her ugly face.

 _Thwack._

Seth gaped,

"Lauren, what the hell did you do that for?"

His tones brought me out of my angry reverie and as the beer buzz cleared I instantly felt pretty damn horrible and massively guilty for having caused someone hurt. Even if that someone was an unpleasant person I had no right to retaliate in any way with my hands and as remorse washed in over me, I covered my mouth up and stepped a little closer all but babbling,

"Oh my god, I am so _so_ sorry, I don't know what came over me, I'll go get you some ice – ,"

It was all I could think of to try to make it up to her, although as it turned out she wasn't keen to make amends and simply pushed Seth to one side with a shoving move before swinging back her arm and closing her fingers into a fist.

 _Crap_.

Pretty evidently she had seen my slapping and was readying to raise me a punch to the head, which I flinched in preparation for but could do little to get out of, besides which maybe I had earned it?

I squeaked.

"Hey, what the fuck is happenin' over here? _Whoa_ , no you don't – ,"

I knew the tones at once and looked up as a body flashed protectively in front of me and caught the flying punch in the palm of one hand. Dean was there and _god_ he smelt amazing which was probably not the right time to be noticing that, seeing as he was suddenly facing off with the old paramour that his idiot _new_ girlfriend had pretty massively ticked off. Roman was there too, hovering right beside him and adding further bulk.

 _Ugh_.

My guys were so good.

Dean blinked,

"Kaylee?"

He sounded blindsided, which wasn't a great surprise since he probably was and likely hadn't really know what he was charging into or who it involved with the exception of me. In return the black haired woman sort of gaped at him and then shook off the bafflement and started to flirt, fluttering her eyes and pushing her lips out to make them look plumped,

"Dean."

Um, hold up –

How in the world did she honestly figure that she could get him on side after attempting to punch me out and how could anyone be so brazen about it and with no hint of shame?

 _We did it on our sides_.

Dean frowned down at her roughly for a second, her wrist still clamped tightly in his right hand but on noticing he dropped it away from him quickly, the heat rising off him,

"What the hell were you gonna do?"

"She slapped me."

"You pushed her, I could see that from the table, I wanna know why."

"Dean – ,"

"Why were you hasslin' my girl?"

He was glaring across at her pretty damn hotly and on being claimed so publicly I grinned a little bit, because even though I had undoubtedly acted like an idiot, there he was still defending my wild crazy ass. Kaylee's eyes swung across to me gravely and Roman responded by pulling me back, edging me off from the volatile situation and behind him just a little, fearing a second attack.

She snorted,

"Bitch didn't like me saying she looked boring."

"Don't call her that."

"Boring?"

Dean responded with a growl, which grumbled right up from his throat in heated warning and drew a little tremor of understanding in response. My boyfriend had been protective of me _always_ right from the first night the two of us had met and when the clerk at the motel in which we had been bunking had tried to take advantage and earned himself a shattered nose. Even when I'd been stupid he was the one thing I could count on, including staring down his former lovers as well.

Kaylee snarled,

"Is this what you're dating now?"

Her manicured hands gestured airily at me, like I was some sort of random museum statue and not a real person who could feel and hear. I wasn't entirely sure what her problem was and why me not having tattoos or piercings was a rub, but clearly she either felt threatened or insulted by having been replaced with a simple country girl. Really it all came from a place of self-loathing and in my beer befuddled state I actually started to feel bad.

I licked my lips,

"You'll find someone eventually."

Kaylee surged towards me,

"You shut your damn mouth – ,"

Luckily however Dean cut her off sharply and Roman moved himself in a tiny shuffle across, which utterly blocked out the rest of what was happening although I could at least still hear how the scene was playing out.

It was my boyfriend who spoke first,

"M' takin' her outta here but if you try that shit again, you'll be dealin' with me."

"You used to be cool Dean, remember our fun times?"

He snorted,

"Not really,"

Then he turned back to me and brushed past Roman to lightly grip my elbow with an expression that I worryingly couldn't quite read. Was he angry at me and if so could I blame him since I had almost fired up an all out brawl at some club? Not to mention I had made him haul up his injured rib cage and likely thumping head in order to stomp across and defend me for what was about the billionth time in only ten months _._ Roman and Seth fell into step alongside us, pretty much acting as our rear flanking patrol and Kaylee yelled out above the noise of the music in shrill angry tones,

"Well fuck you Dean, I hope you and your dull girlfriend are happy."

I wanted to spin back and tell her that we were –

I wanted to add in that we actually lived together and had adopted a dog who was like our little son. Plus I could have mentioned we had talked about children and Dean had even promised he would propose to me one day. In fact there were a million things I honestly could have mentioned, but thought it better not to as I was swiftly towed along. My feet sort of slapped the floor tiles heavily and as I stumbled just a little I decided I _was_ drunk.

My head spun.

"Dean?"

"Mmhmm."

No words was not a good sign and I faltered a little as we pushed through the club doors. The warm breeze hit me and threw me off briefly as I caught my heel on the kerb outside and almost totally face planted sideways, although my boyfriend pulled me closer and tucked me in beneath his arm.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Um, for slapping your ex-girlfriend?"

He grunted,

"Lauren, she _wasn't_ my girl, I told you, she was just some chick I used to sleep with."

"Hardwood Kaylee."

His lips quirked up a bit, but it was clear that he was trying to pretend like he was mad at me and so rather than laughing he cleared his throat instead and led me along the street like a child with his brothers in tow.

"Come on Princess."

Roman snorted fondly and then chuckled from behind us in the way my boyfriend had admirably held back, gently nudging my spine with his shoulder as he grinned down at me,

"You got some real balls, maybe we'll make you a wrestler after all."

Dean growled at him defiantly.

"Fuck no."

"Seth? You figure baby girl's got it in her? How about we make her a fighting member of this team?"

In response to him the youngest member of their brotherhood snorted very mildly like he didn't really care then continued to walk with his hands in his pockets not saying a word right the way back to the hotel. We didn't know it then, but it should have been red flag.

Things were not okay in our world.

* * *

 **So were back in drunken style then! Hope you liked this one. Next chapter, sexy time!**


	2. The Right Kind Of Wrong

**Thank you so, sooo much for your reviews guys. Glad you're happy to have this pair back. Reading your comments makes the long hours of writing and editing and stressing out over words and sentences worth all of the time spent! I love you guys! And to anyone toying with leaving a few words for me, don't be shy, please do and make me smile!**

 **Mandy, Aww, so happy you love these guys like I do and I'm super glad good things have been happening for you. Pleased that this is one of them. Yep, drunk Lauren is pretty chaotically adorable and that only gets worse in this chapter coming up. Let's just say her idea for the next part doesn't end up going totally to plan!**

 **Minnie1015, I'm so glad you like all the little cutesy details. I love having to imagine what it would be like to snuggle with him (wow, that came out way more stalker-ish than I meant it) and then trying to describe how that might be. Happy to keep throwing in those sort of things always, because otherwise what kind of a romance story would it be?!**

 **Sodapop25, Hey, glad you're back for these two again! Buckle in because this is going to be a pretty wild ride (and I know, I know, I say that for a lot of my stories but I totally, totally mean it this time!) Thanks for your review and always sticking with me!**

 **Skovko, Lauren leading a quiet life where she's out in the garden pruning flowers or sat inside knitting simply wouldn't be right. We all know that girl is total trouble magnet and apparently that intensifies whenever she's blind drunk! Figured I might as well throw her right back into the thick of things. I mean, why waste time right?**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, After everything she's been through, Lauren is slowly learning to have a little bit of spunk. Not that it particularly seems to work out for her, plus, deep down she'll always be too nice. But yeah, Kaylee absolutely had it coming. How dare she think that she was better for Dean than our girl? Not on my watch!**

 **Raze Olympus, I can confirm that your mercenaries are all in good health. They showed up here, I gave them some cake and a cup of tea and we all parted as friends. I am having lunch with one of their mothers next week as it turns out she's local. But seriously, so happy you're back for this! Heads up though, the later part of this chapter is more infamous** _ **sexy time**_ **(first bit's not).**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Yay! Super glad you're happy they're back and are liking the start of this installment so far. The first few chapters were super fun for me to write too, including this one, so I've got my fingers crossed that you enjoy it as well!**

 **HannonsPen, Yay! I was hoping that you would show up! Glad you're back for this next crazy ride. Ugh, I know, Seth leaving isn't fun times, but I think I've managed to do an okay job (time will tell!) Good news is that the gangs all back...including Kelly, so we're all ready to rock and roll. Nothing like starting a story by throwing in am ex-girlfriend huh? Hope you like this one too!**

 **Back to it then and it turns out that drunk Lauren isn't quite through yet..**

* * *

 **The Right Kind Of Wrong**

The second we got across the threshold of our hotel room, I launched for my boyfriend like we had been on a fast and therefore prohibited from having our usual _sexy time_ , which quite honestly could not have been further from the truth.

He grunted at me,

"Princess – ," then thudded back heavily as I pretty much spider monkeyed right around his chest and forced him to knock against the door that he had half closed and which then promptly swung all the way shut with a bang.

"Oops."

My giggle was spoken right up close against his bottom lip, that I had captured like a half-starved rabbit between my teeth and although he was trying his best to look disgruntled, he couldn't deny the blissful shiver he drew in, or the hands that steadied my hip bones gently as I rocked onto my tiptoes.

He mumbled back at me,

"My dirty girl."

"Is that why you love me more than you loved her?"

Dean blinked,

"Who?"

He had forgotten? Typical. It probably should have told me what I needed to know, but in my booze soaked state of swirling apprehension I still needed to hear it said out loud and so dropped my head sullenly and briskly waved a hand around.

" _Hardwood Kaylee_."

I might have spat her name out and then thrown in an eye roll for extra good measure, all of which turned me back into a schoolgirl again and one who had a super jealous crush on somebody, but I just couldn't help the way that I felt. Dean was the best thing that had happened to me _ever_ and I hated another woman strutting around on my turf and reminding us both that there had been others before me with more chutzpah and practice than I was likely to ever have.

My boyfriend raised a brow,

"Huh, this shit really bothers you."

He said it like that sort of surprised him somehow and I frowned in response, looking ever more brooding and shrugged against his body as I laid my head across his abs. Suddenly I needed to be holding him closely, like I was trying to make sure no other girl could prize me off and possibly try to throw a punch in my direction.

My voice was all sulky,

"She said I was dull."

In response to my statement Dean swiftly pulled me into him then nuzzled his face right alongside my ear, kissing the spot between my eye and my hairline as he chuckled a little,

"You're anythin _'_ but that, _fuck_ , I mean you've been kidnapped twice in the nine months I've known you and that's before you even _mention_ some of the other messed up stuff and not forgettin' that you just slapped her bitch ass, so if she thinks that's borin' then who gives a fuck?"

I blinked,

"You're not mad at me?"

"For what?"

"Um, brawling?"

Dean snorted at me and his firm abs jerked as he obviously fought down a burst of amusement that was hovering near the surface but that I couldn't work out. I was still pretty drunk but the guilt hadn't left me and continued to gnaw like a cow chewing cud. I wasn't exactly a violent person but my pride and my jealousy had gotten out of hand and almost created a total disaster, so I plain didn't get why he wasn't more annoyed.

"Princess, whatever _that_ was, trust me, it wasn't brawlin'."

"But I did something wrong."

"I liked it."

"You did?"

He shrugged in reply,

"Sure, not gonna lie here, you goin' to bat and bein' all possessive? Kinda got me turned on as hell."

"Oh."

I wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that notion since I had been working on disappointment in myself, without having ever considered for a moment that my actions had been meanwhile having a counter effect. Seeing my confusion he dipped his head and kissed me and the contact instantly chased my blues away. It was deep and fierce and full of tongue-clashing that drove a hot bolt of need into my soul.

I hummed into his mouth,

"Are we going to _do the deed_ now?"

He snorted back wryly,

"Mood killer right there."

He had never been a fan of my old fashioned sayings and clearly his aversion hadn't faded with time. Reaching up I smiled and stroked his stubbled jawline before leaning in and pecking him gently on the lips. As usual it made the mood heighten pretty quickly so I swiftly pulled back before I lost my control.

"Be right back, I've got to go and freshen up a little bit, your ex-girlfriend's makeup is all smeared on my hand."

"Never my girlfriend, told you already."

He rolled his eyes then batted my fingers down, which had sort of been waving millimetres from his nose tip as I demonstrated the layer of concealer caked there, because god did _Hardwood Kaylee_ ever wear a lot of product.

I briefly wondered if her skin ever got to see the sun.

"Hmmm."

Dean could tell in an instant my mind had wandered and so stepped in sighing and spun me around, pointing me with purpose in the direction of the bathroom and then giving me a chivvying pat.

"Princess, go on."

Evidently he was eager to get the party started, which couldn't exactly happen until I had things sorted out and knowing it I stumbled on slightly shaky ankles but made it to the door without landing on my face. Behind me I could hear him pulling off his jacket and that sound was followed by the thud of his shoes as he clearly kicked them off in a hurry.

I shut the door behind me, not keen to hold him up.

Besides which having steamy sex with my boyfriend was definitely something that I was perpetually ready for. Dean was just so god damn gorgeous and dreamy and perfect and everything all rolled into one. He quite literally deserved to have nothing but good things and as long as I was with him then that was what he would get. Including little ways to keep our love life inventive, which was probably the reason for my sudden brilliant plan. Propped by the mirror was his trusty can of shaving foam and it made me flashback to some article I had read, about a woman who made a cream bikini for her boyfriend to slowly lick off her.

It had sounded really hot.

Dean was going to totally love it and the second it had been planted my brain ran wild with the thought, taking my greater sense of consciousness with it until my clothes were on the floor and the can was in my hand. I possibly even giggled a little because I honestly felt like I was girlfriend of the year and even though the foam was cold on my nipples the thought of the payoff made it easier to bear. My biggest problem in the application staging was exactly how much to do _down there_ and although I briefly tried to cover up my ass cheeks, being fairly drunk meant it didn't work well. In the end therefore I merely focussed on the front part and clumsily drew the bottoms and top until not only had I used the greater part of the can up, but I also had a passable bikini work of art.

Dean yelled roughly,

"Princess, you fall asleep in there?"

I grinned,

"Not exactly, get ready, I'm coming out."

Possibly he wondered why I was giving him a warning but as I flung the door open it was suddenly made clear and I grinned at his face which was fully gaping at me although thanks to the booze I misread the baffled look.

"Lauren – ,"

"Do you like it?"

I sauntered my way over to him giggling because having foam everywhere felt totally bizarre and rubbed at my thighs and changed the careful lines of my bikini until the bottoms looked more like a pair of puffy boy shorts. I stopped by the bed and then posed for him a little, snickering to myself and still wobbly on my feet.

My boyfriend blinked,

"Is that – ,"

"I'm wearing an edible bikini, I read something about it being all sexy to lick off."

"So it's whipped cream then?"

I faltered,

 _God damn it_.

Even completely buzzed I felt like a fool and my face fell a mile as I realized my glaring error at which point my cheeks began to readily burn. I had honestly never been more of an idiot, which with my impressive record was saying a lot and so my answer came out as a sad little mumble that was only barely audible,

"Um, no, it's shaving foam."

"My shaving foam?"

I dropped my head heavily and let it crash into the palms of my hands as I blew out a groan and then bleated at him sadly in a mixture of self-pitying and frustrated tones,

" _Ugh_ – I'm so stupid, why am I so stupid?"

Dean moved towards me with a creak of the bed springs, although I didn't look up until his fingers closed in soothingly and circled around my wrists before pulling them back down. His blue eyes were sparkling by the time I glanced upwards and there was total amusement stamped over his face, along with a fondness that made my chest tighten and so much deep love that I couldn't even breathe,

"You're drunk, not stupid, but you're fuckin' cute about it,"

"I've painted myself with bathroom products designed for _men_."

He grinned and then attempted to fight a chuckled laugh down which failed in an instant and bubbled over his lips, although even I as moved again to mumble back bitterly, he swept in and captured my sorry ass in a kiss. It was gentle at first but then became deeper and I suddenly forgot that I was plastered with foam and so pressed up against him, needing the proximity and then freezing as my breasts smeared white gel across his abs.

 _Crap_.

I pulled back instantly which created a sucking noise as our fused bodies parted with a wet sounding smack and I then stood blinking balefully at the messiness that I had painted over his formerly beautiful chest.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry."

Even worse than that however was that I had pushed my _ladies parts_ up against him as well and so the boxers he was wearing were caked in it also and in the moment the entire situation seemed a complete and utter mess, until Dean grinned at me and seized up my fingers,

"Come on."

"Where are we going?"

For a horrible moment I was convinced that for some reason he was going to lead me out into the hall and that the pair of us would end up all naked and foam smeared in front of the rest of the bewildered clientele. Luckily however and pretty damn obviously, that wasn't my boyfriend's actual plan and instead he towed me into the bathroom before spinning me gently and guiding me down.

"Easy Princess."

I hit the toilet seat heavily and then in my drunkenness nearly pitched right off the side before Dean's big hands moved in to gently steady me, all the while reaching over to flip the taps of the tub. Instantly steaming hot water spilt out of them and I blinked in confusion and measures of alarm.

"Aren't we – aren't we going to have sexy time?"

Dean snorted wryly,

"You bet we fuckin' are."

Picking up a bottle and then squinting towards it before deciding it was clearly the appropriate one, he upended a globule of bubble bath into the waterfall and then headed back across the space and turned the light off. Really we could probably have done with some candles but the lamps from the nightstand threw in an orangey glow and with the scent of ylang-ylang rising up among the steam banks I couldn't deny that it felt intimate and –

Oh.

Dean was planning on _doing the deed_ in the bathtub with bubbles and heat?

I nodded drunkenly,

"Wow, yes please."

In response to me answering the question he hadn't asked yet, my boyfriend snorted wryly and then pushed back my hair, sweeping it up and away from my forehead and then dropping a kiss down on the surface instead. The bathtub was big but filling up quickly and knowing it he leant forward and lightly swept me up, sliding his arm in under my kneecaps and letting me wind my arms up around his neck.

"You ready baby?"

I whimpered keenly at him,

" _Need_ you – ,"

"Easy," he murmured, "Gonna give my girl what she deserves."

Moving across the bathroom was pretty easy considering it comprised of only two wrestler man-sized strides, because the next thing I knew he was lowering me steadily and into the water's enveloping warmth. I shut my eyes and let him do it, mumbling two drunken sounding words out,

"So good."

The warm glow from the bedroom painted shadows across the tiling and made everything feel close and intimate and hushed. Or at least it did once I leaned forward and turned the taps off, not wanting the high water level to overflow, since it probably wouldn't have been very romantic to be stopped mid-lovemaking by screams from the room down below.

Plus it would have been a hell of a check out bill.

Fortunately however my unsexy musings were quickly cut off by Dean sliding in behind, his legs appearing on either side of my body and then one of his arms drawing me back against his chest. I went with it willingly, pillowing myself against him as he dropped his head down and began to kiss my cheek. The touches were light but tear-jerkingly affectionate and I reached my hand up to cup his handsome face, rubbing my fingers backwards the wrong way up his stubble and enjoying the feel of the tiny hairs bite.

"Mmmm."

Nuzzling his head down into my neckline, Dean moved his hands and began to pool water up, letting it trickle off his palms across my torso and then using his hands to massage the foam off. His fingers moved gently – just tipping the water – but occasionally rubbing his thumbs across my breasts and making me whimper ever so lightly as they trailed down to where the bikini briefs had been. Tipping my head back with a moan against his shoulder, I arched my back to brush my lips along his jaw, starting to kiss a little line of my own love while reaching down to guide his fingers some more.

"I might have to start using the bathtub more often."

I trembled as he ghosted touches right across my sweet spot and in response I nipped gently at the tight skin along his jaw bone, which made his own need knock hard against my back. As his digits began to tap out a rhythm right at the place that I needed him the most, I jolted and dragged in heavy breaths across his neckline which were perforated every few seconds with tiny moans.

"Dean – ,"

" _Fuck_."

It seemed my noises were definitely helping although we hadn't quite reached the big main event yet and as I felt my excitement beginning to rush upwards, I brushed his fingers off and shook my head,

"I need _you_."

He kissed me again, catching the space at my temple and filling the movement with a desperate love, his arms encircling me and pulling me backwards in a tight and very sweet mid- _sexy time_ hug.

"You got me, Princess."

His tone was gruff and husky and borderline sloppy with what I knew could only be lust. I wasn't sure how we would move onto the next step – or even what position we could possibly use – but I trusted Dean and his infinite wisdom and knowing that in no way would he ever steer me wrong. Although he certainly did steer me in the literal definition by taking my hand and spinning me around, which thankfully I could do since the bathtub was so spacious that we could probably have fitted someone else in there too.

Except in _no_ way did I need an addition.

Just me and Dean forever would totally do.

Turning around brought me back so I was facing him and I giggled a little at the expression on his face, which was so in control and utterly hungered that I shivered before waggling my fingers playfully at him,

"Hi again."

At my chirpy aside he grinned back wolfishly then suddenly launched forward like some manic big cat, making me tip over backwards in astonishment as he lowered himself on top of me traditionally,

" _Whoa_."

Except this was not traditional sex _at all_ , because frankly it was wetter and hotter than that, with the steam and the water and the essential oils surrounding me and filling me entirely until I could barely see straight. My back was pressed against the curve of the porcelain and the lower I went, the more the waterline rose. Dean was above me, forearms beside my shoulders and his blue eyes searching,

"You ready baby?"

"Uh huh."

Spreading my legs I let him ease into me and then tangled my limbs around his tight little butt, letting out another long moan of sheer pleasure and shutting my eyes as I tossed my head back. It cracked up hard against the back of the bathtub and I hissed a little.

Dean grinned at me,

"Princess, you alright?"

"Don't stop," I murmured, that being my biggest issue and he chuckled in response then dropped further down, until his abs were pressing right up against my nipples and his lips were over mine,

"Don't fuckin' worry about that."

He kissed me even as he was moving inside of me and the dual headspin action tipped me almost clean over the edge. At the very least I was almost right on top of my crescendo, which was probably why I only very vaguely noticed as he slipped his broad hands gently underneath my head, creating a pillow between the bathtub and my cranium to stop me from accidentally concussing myself again. At the same time he kept up the passionate kissing in a near continuous lip lock as he shuddered to a close with me coming maybe only five seconds later, whimpering across his tongue as we panted but smooched on. When the two of us finally broke away from one another I was shaking but also buzzing and super relaxed, like I had somehow offloaded every single scrap of tension I had let get to me earlier.

 _Take that Kaylee_.

Dean groaned,

"Fuck."

Dropping his head down until the pair of us were touching brow lines, he gazed into my eyes like he was reading my mind, breaking it only to plant a kiss on my forehead as he mumbled a groggy sentence against my sizzling hot skin,

"Never done this sort of shit before Princess, not with _anyone_ , you know that right?"

"Is that why I'm your girl?"

I cupped his stubbly face again, holding it firm so that it couldn't move away and which meant that I could study it ever more closely. Not for any signs of omission or untruth either, but just because I loved it so much and would frankly have happily gazed at it forever, unable to believe that the features were mine. He shuffled a little lower and then claimed my throbbing lips again, but in a much more chaste and reassuring kiss that was clearly designed to make me believe it as he rumbled his answer,

"That's why you're my fuckin' _P_ _rincess_."

I giggled again and reached up for another peck, winding my hands in and around his broad back, smoothing the wet skin under my fingertips and ever so gently digging my nails in,

"You know, I haven't ever given _you_ a nickname."

His brows rose up,

"How about _the sex king_?"

"Not so sure your teammates would like that one."

"Well, it would be kind of weird if you were using it on them."

"Um, okay that's a pretty icky thought you know."

Leaning in again he gently kissed my nose,

"I don't need a nickname baby, I've got a whole bunch of 'em and none of 'em are sweet an' cutesy like you want – _the crazy one, the lunatic fringe_ an' all that shit – I kinda just like it when you call me by my name, there's somethin' about the way you say it, I don't know what it is, it just does things to me."

I stroked his jawline,

"Dean," I responded, then for good measure, "Dean, Dean, Dean."

He grinned at me roguishly,

"Better stop Princess, or else I'm gonna wanna do this bathtub dance again and you're already gettin' kinda weird and pruney like a little old lady. It is _not_ an attractive thing."

But he leaned down and kissed me one last time to ease the teasing, then let out a sigh and hauled himself up, giving me a view of his perfect naked glory as he easily clambered out of the tub.

 _Ugh_.

It was official. I was dating a demi-god, who strutted around the earth with us other mere folks and had for unknowns reason fallen in love with a mortal who was clumsy and awkward and ridiculous.

Meaning me.

Wrapping a bath towel tight around his middle and sealing off the wondrous sight of his whole form, he held out a large soft expanse of thick cotton and then stood waiting for me,

"Princess? Come on."

In wrapping me up – once I had risen from the water – he enveloped me completely in another loving hug, which he held for a second as we drip-dried on the floor tiles and breathed in the lingering smell of oils and _sexy time_. I tiptoed up and kissed him sweetly before snuggling deeper into the towel's cosy folds, not to mention his fresh smelling muscles, as I murmured out a sentence,

"It turned out okay after all."

He snorted a little then dropped his chin onto my forehead, rocking us slightly as if caught in a breeze and almost lulling me to sleep in the process.

There was nowhere else I would rather have been.

* * *

 **Even though it's too late to change it now, can I just say that I hope you have all missed** _ **sexy time**_ **and in this installment with added shaving cream for your general reading pleasure! On a sad note though, tipsy Lauren is now done and we'll be going back to the regular trouble-finding Lauren next chapter (aka normal service will be resumed!)**


	3. Warning Bells

**Normal service resumed then like I promised. Who wants Lauren in a little bit of her usual trouble? But who is the bad guy going to be this time?**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Drunk Lauren is a whole lot of fun. It's just unfortunate that Dean is laughing at her not with her. Plus they're going to have to stop off now and buy him a whole new can of shaving foam! Glad you like them drunk though. Maybe I should bring that back at some point?!**

 **Mandy, Aww thanks, glad you still love our crazy girl. Who else could make such a drunk mess of sexy time?! It's a good thing Dean loves his women crazy and chaotic right? Seriously though, that chapter was so much fun to write and I super glad you liked it!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Thank you so much! Nothing like a bit of Lauren and Dean shenanigans to (nearly) kick start a new story off. But from now on we're getting down to business and into the drama end of the story. Brace yourself!**

 **Raze Olympus, Honestly, I sort of did toy with the idea of not turning Seth bad too, but I'd kind of been following the other storylines pretty faithfully and so decided to bite the bullet and go for it. Still, I mean, this is a story after all, so who's to say I can't turn him good again before real life?!**

 **Minnie1015, Yay! Glad you liked it. I have no idea where the last chapter came from (not a story from my real life back catalogue I am both happy and sad to report). Totally just seemed like something Lauren would do though. Plus we all know that Dean is a very understanding boyfriend, even if he will have a shaving rash now until they can get the boy some more foam!**

 **Skovko, Sssh, don't wake up the neighbours at 5.30, that would be very bad! Glad you missed their wild sexy times though and am happy to be able to write both sexy and funny in one, I feel like that's some sort of an achievement! But then again, what would a hot chapter between these two be without Lauren doing something either embarrassing or awkward? The girl can't help herself!**

 **HannonsPen, Haha, sorry to catch you unawares with that, hope the steam didn't get too debilitating?! Glad you think I write it well though. Until Dean and Lauren it was something I simply had never done, but I kinda figured they needed some physical moments. Super happy I can keep them in character throughout though! Yay!**

 **Drama time then...**

* * *

 **Warning Bells**

The next day I might have been a _tiny_ bit hungover but fortunately not enough to make me want pass out or hurl and so despite making the wise choice to skip both lunch and breakfast, I was ready to go when the taping rolled around.

Roman and Seth met us down in the lobby and with no end of teased barbs that I had to repel and most of which centred around my brand new fighting prowess and hellacious roundhouse slap that they both wanted me to unveil.

"Go on baby girl, give the boss lady some pointers."

Dean snorted wryly,

"Her brawlin _'_ days are done, from now on she's goin' back to hangin' at ringside an' takin' it easy."

Nor was he remotely kidding about that and knowing it I grinned in his direction pretty winningly and then pretend-painted a cross shape right over my heart, before burrowing in underneath his protectively tense shoulder and keeping in step as we sauntered towards the car.

The mood had been happy and pumped and victorious.

No one had seemed to notice that Seth was too quiet and neither had anyone paid much attention to the fact he had seemed muted in the dressing room as well, which was probably because his teammates and brothers were still sort of _basking_ in the post pay-per-view glow and the fact that barely twenty four hours earlier they had buried their asshole boss and his associates as well.

Their boss and my father.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

The man who had loved me and made me feel wanted before totally destroying things and tearing that down and in a way that had broken my heart so dramatically and shaken my confidence so that I had yet to work it out or even _begin_ to wrap my head around the notion that his feuding in the ring took precedence over what we'd had.

Then there was Randy.

I shuddered on instinct because frankly just the name was enough to make me ill and sap any vague type of recovery I had worked on along with my feelings of security and any sense of goodwill. Not surprising really given what the guy had done to me, or maybe that should have been _tried_ his best to do and potentially would have even succeeded in had Kane of all people not frightened him away. Some tapings it was as much as I could do to even be there simply knowing that his bald head was prowling around and not only that but being protected by my father –

The one person beside my boyfriend who should have been calling to have him hanged.

Blowing out a breath I quickly threw out my fingers and laced them around a familiar hand, suddenly feeling Randy's latent touch across my body and getting lost within the flashbacks,

"Dean – ,"

"Princess, you okay?"

He was standing in front of me taping his wrists up but he stopped in an instant on seeing my face, noticing my stuttered and panicky breathing and knowing through spidey-sense what was going on.

"He – he – ,"

"He's not here baby, it's just me and guys, you're totally safe."

Ducking down in front of me his face filled my vision and was joined by the sensation of his hands on my cheeks, grounding me to something both real and solid and which chased away the nightmares for me anytime I asked. His thumbs stroked my skin in a soothing little motion and I shut my eyes briefly and leant into their touch, fighting down a threatening bubble of hysteria and knowing deep in my system that my boyfriend was right. Dean was there and was in no way about to leave me, so in very real terms that meant I was fine.

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

It seemed worth saying audibly and I frowned above his fingers and focussed on the words, repeating them maybe another five times in total before finally believing them, taking a breath and looking up.

Blue eyes stared back at me,

"Princess?"

"I'm sorry."

Dean kissed my forehead,

"Nothin' to be fuckin' sorry about so stop apologizin' for shit that's not your fault here."

"Okay, sorry."

He rolled his eyes and then stood with a snort, pleased that I had clearly sufficiently recovered to be happy enough to bust his poor chops and in response he scrubbed my hair the wrong way purposefully and made me protest in shrill tones,

"Dean, _ugh_ – ,"

From across the room the television was playing and as usual it was tuned to the taping live-feed so that those backstage could keep an eye on the action and react or else otherwise when the real messed up stuff went down. For the most part nothing too much had been happening and so I hadn't been paying any attention to the thing, but that all changed at a sudden blast of music which bled through my system and made me tense up again.

"Shit."

Dean's sharp curse drew his teammates attentions and the locker room fell silent as all four of us looked up and drank in not the only the blaze of colors on the titantron but also the three proud seeming figures swaggering out.

I swallowed loudly.

My father was the first one, dressed in one of his expensive formal suits and sporting a black eye that one of the guys had given him and which was grimly satisfying although it didn't last long, because hovering behind him was a t-shirt clad figure who mere seconds earlier had been making me fight for breath and on seeing his smug expression a hole sheered through my stomach then deposited the contents right down into my feet.

Randy Orton.

I simply couldn't watch it and so lowered my head to instead study the floor and try and work out precisely how old the stains were and maybe what had made them.

"Easy baby girl."

Roman's broad figure slid into place beside me and put a big, protective feeling arm around my neck before pulling me closer and right up against him until his wet hair and aftershave managed to chase away the fright. Dean glanced back but on seeing his brother on it, he turned his attentions to the flatscreen again and we all held our breath as Hunter lifted the microphone and waited for the phenomenal amounts of booing to die down.

It made me snort a little,

 _Go wrestling universe_.

But that quickly faded as his gruff voice boomed out.

"They say it's always darkest, just before the dawn – ,"

It seemed like a slightly strange line to begin with but noteworthy also for being unflinching where I had vaguely hoped that he might have been a little beaten down, or maybe embarrassed or even remorseful for having thrown away our kinship for a clean sweep of a loss. Sadly however, he was anything _but_ that and remained the stoic asshole that I was coming to know well.

"The funny thing is they think they've won, you _all_ think they've won – ,"

Dean grumbled,

"Fuckin' have."

In response to him I settled in tighter to Roman's shoulder and he responded by tucking his big arm in close. His older brother vibes were essentially running riot and they made me feel safe and best of all _loved_. Hunter was still talking but I drowned him out a little against the scratchy black fabric of Roman's tactical vest, which even worked for a couple of seconds.

Then another voice chimed in.

I blinked up,

Huh?

"I don't want another match with The Shield, I've been there, done that, I'm through with it now."

Batista of all people seemed to have snatched up the microphone and was glaring across the ring at the man who was his boss and also the de facto leader of Evolution and therefore the guy to whom he was supposed to show respect.

Seth snorted,

"Wow, he's actually doing it."

But his sentence got pretty much lost in the buzz as the fall out in the ring continued unabated and Batista stamped his feet and all but demanded a title match, which went down about as well with my swaggering father as asking if he wanted to drop round for tea and barbs zinged back and forth to the point I felt dizzy because there was something else happening.

I blinked,

"Are they breaking up?"

Batista was stood in the middle of the matting, waving with a totally blank expression his face. Meanwhile my father was gaping in fury with the words still ringing around the arena walls.

 _I quit_.

"Get back here, get back in this ring – ,"

Hunter's bellowed orders fell on totally deaf ears as the third man of their powerful and crooked little trio stripped off his fancy tie and simply strode up the ramp, leaving his comrades to sort of balefully stare after him which also answered my question.

Roman cleared his throat,

"Damn."

For a moment no one spoke.

No one quite knew what to say to it since in the blink of an eye their fiercest feud appeared up and finished with such a surprising sort of whimper that it almost lent a touch of anti-climax to the air. Each of us had sort of envisioned the grudge lasting right on through into the recesses of time and so the fact that their enemy was suddenly depleted was as shocking to them as it was a relief to me and I couldn't hold back my bubble of astonishment which was mixed with pure elation,

"So, does that mean it's over now?"

Roman shook his head,

"I don't know baby girl, I guess so."

Dean however was by no means convinced and turned back towards us cracking his knuckles and looking so wild and angry that it made me catch my breath. I couldn't imagine what had got him so heated other than seeing my tormentors in the flesh but even then considering that the group had half exploded, I had figured that he might have been smiling at least.

He wasn't.

"No, this is not fuckin' _over_."

"But they're not a team now uce, you saw it, they're done."

"You think so, huh?"

Evidently he didn't and in response to his foreboding and fiercely threatening sounding question, Seth turned around with broad arms folded across his chest, looking a little wearied but otherwise patient as his gaze flickered over,

"What are you talking about man?"

"I'm talkin' about the boss not givin' up easy – nothin' has changed, we need to stick to the plan. Because unless I hear it direct from that bastard then as far as I'm concerned this shit is still on and I'm not about to turn my back on either one of them until those assholes are dead and buried."

He wasn't messing around and nor did he have a reason for doing so since we all knew how hazardous our enemies could be. After all, it had taken just my father and a roofie to whisk me away from the safety of Dean's arms and so as long as Hunter, Kane, Stephanie and Randy were still trudging the whitewashed corridors then the threat was very real.

Seth nodded slowly,

"Alright then, nothing changes, I'm on board with that."

Roman grunted,

"Me too."

It pleased me how easily they all came together considering how at odds they had been months before, when rumblings had been rife that _they_ would be the teammates to next call it quits and yet there they all were, stood like the brothers they had always been and backing one another right the way to the hilt. I was stupidly proud to the point I almost burst with it and it made my tummy bubble with a deep abiding love.

Dean grit his jawline,

"We go out there like we planned it, no backin' down."

Seth snorted,

"Do we ever man?"

My boyfriend grinned wryly and with his expression the mood softened but also seemed to solidify as well, in the way that the atmosphere often did before a match up. It was how I knew that they were moving into go _-_ mode and it settled my misgivings since it was powerful to say the least. In spite of it though, I still felt kind of twitchy which was why I suddenly, somewhat shakily stood up, needing to be actually out _doing_ something other than watching them and staring up at the clock.

Dean blinked at me,

"Hey, where d' ya think you're goin'?"

"Nowhere, I just want to run some laps in the hall."

"Princess – ,"

"I'll be right outside I promise, you'll be able to hear me, I'm not going anywhere."

He huffed an angry breath out and then glared at me forcefully, but after eight months of dating I had pretty much become immune, besides which I knew that if I didn't do something active then possibly I would pretty much go stark raving insane and seeing my refusal to back down from the notion, my boyfriend grunted wearily,

"Right outside, nowhere else."

I held up three fingers,

"Yes boss, scout's honor."

Besides which I wouldn't have dared to step away, since anytime I wasn't glued putty-like to him, terrible things seemed to clatter my way and wrap me up in kidnappings and unrelenting danger so that the one thing in life I knew with certainty was _stay close_. Dean rolled his eyes and muttered a bitter sentence and I responded with a smile,

"Love you."

Then I was gone.

Heading for the door and out into the hallway, I stretched my legs briefly and then started to run, or actually more like sprint or else jog slowly, or possibly even very briskly walk. In essence I wasn't too convinced I was racing but I was at least moving and that was a start and as my heartrate picked up and I focused on my breathing, the shock and latent worry started to gradually shift off. Not that it left me completely or anything, rather it mostly just got shoved to one side, but within a few minutes it wasn't screaming in my eardrums and I was actually beginning to feel almost calm.

Naturally being close to the locker room helped me, since I kept my word to stay glued to where they were and so that meant when I frequently turned and sprinted past the doorway, I could see them inside wetting their hair and being _close_.

Literally nobody and nothing could touch me –

Then a hand whipped out suddenly and dragged me round into the dark, pushing me back against the wall around the corner and then covering my mouth with their fingers.

 _Oh god_.

I squeaked on instinct and tried to fight out of it, my panic briefly stealing the ability to see. Instantly I assumed that my assailant was Bray Wyatt or Randy or my father or perhaps the bogeyman. Potentially even some disfigured pianist who lived in the basement full Phantom of the Opera style. Fighting against the fingers I tried to twist my head loose so I could scream for the guys but gruff tones cut me off,

"I just want to talk."

I blinked.

 _Batista_?

He was literally the last person that I would have put my money on and the realization of who he was calmed me, which didn't make a whole lot of sense in the scheme of things, since until ten minutes earlier he had been my father's buddy and the night before had been attempting to maim my boyfriend, not to mention that he still had his big fingers across my mouth.

I mumbled something and he lifted a brow up,

"You going to scream?"

I paused then shook my head and in response he very, very slowly lifted his hand up, at which point I hauled a deep pre-yelling breath in and it clapped right back across my throbbing lips again.

"I'm not going to hurt you, alright, I'm here to warn you."

My heart was pounding so fiercely against my ribcage that for a moment I thought I had probably misheard, because why would my enemy be trying to help me and more to point, what was he alerting me about? Intrigue pricked at me and I again tried at speaking, which fell out incoherently up against his palm and he grumbled but then obliged by freeing my mouth up, though he kept his digits hovering lip-clampingly close.

"Warn me? I don't – ,"

"Your daddy's planning something."

I blinked in confusion and it was so overwhelming that I totally forgot what a bind I was in, _or_ that the whole thing could have been a swindle and that he was tricking me into somehow sealing my own doom.

"Planning what?"

Batista shook his head and his fingers eased slightly from where they were wound in tight around my wrist. Evidently the fact I wasn't screaming the place down had settled some of his unhappy vibes and he took a step backwards to give me some freedom which at once made the air a little cooler again.

"All I'm saying is watch your back."

"That's it?"

He shrugged,

"It's a warning, I'm not snitching okay?"

"So then why even bother to tell me about it?"

It seemed like a relevant question on my part since the partly told tale of caution seemed woefully empty and void of any sort of points or directives that might help. For my former adversary to have trampled to the basement and risked getting his ass kicked just to tell me to _watch out_ , then it had to be something pretty massive that was coming and that rattled me slightly.

Okay, a lot.

Batista sucked a breath in, suddenly looking a little awkward and then waved an overly casual sort of hand and I knew from my growing experience with wrestlers that he was dancing around something but still trying to seem tough.

"Look, you seem like a nice kid or whatever and I can see you getting hurt in what's coming up."

"Which is?"

He rolled his eyes,

"Take my advice, don't trust anyone."

"Kind of ironic to hear that coming from _you_."

It was true of course but more ballsy than I had meant it and in response to its sharpness the bald headed monolith narrowed his gaze and turned towards me with another step inwards that backed me right up into the biting wall again. For a moment I wasn't exactly sure what he was thinking and to that end I opened my mouth to scream out but I was spared from actually having to do it by a nasally tone that cut in across the scene,

"Hey man, get away from her."

I looked up then blew a breath out as Seth flashed past me then boldly shoved the man off and inserted himself into the space right in front of me with a protective flash of anger and a hint of panic as well. Batista stumbled slightly, clearly not having expected him and for a minute I assumed that a brawl would erupt, but as he straightened himself and caught sight of his attacker, the man mountain merely snorted and sort of wryly shook his head,

"How fitting."

It didn't make much sense as a sentence and in response I frowned in his direction with a _huh_ but Seth was by no means in the mood for more talking and so stamped forward again with purpose as he attempted to fend him off.

"Get outta here man – the hell do you think you're doing trying to scare her?"

Batista grinned widely,

"You know, you are really something else."

"I'm giving you three more seconds to back away from this."

Neither man seemed willing to give up their stance and as the tension ramped up and sort of frazzled like bacon freshly laid out in an oiled up pan, I tried my best to quell the ferocity by attempting to reach out and seize up the closest arm.

"Seth – ,"

He snatched it away from me violently and curled his fists to ready for a punch, which thankfully managed to _not_ get delivered since a shadow fell over me and two more forms skated in, one of them being tall and glowering and bulky and the other one being tousle-haired and glorious.

Dean.

Instantly I exhaled a breath I didn't know I'd been holding then slid along the wall to be close to where he was, at which point I tucked myself in behind his elbow and took up his hand in a needed vice grip. His own fingers tensed but then folded around me and he grumbled out a sentence while looking dead ahead and right at the man who had managed to corner me and had made me feel uneasy.

"Lauren, you okay?"

"He – he didn't hurt me."

Roman glared unblinking,

"So then what _did_ he want?"

Seth snorted roughly in return, almost sort of dancing with anger and moving up and down on the balls of his feet. Turning to his teammates he briskly threw his hands out, which succeeded in cutting off their former enemy's response and his tones were snappy and raw with frustration as he windmilled a little.

"Who the hell cares? Like we could trust a word he's saying. He's probably delivering a note from Hunter or some shit or trying to mess with us just like they always do."

Batista coughed wryly and in response my boyfriend scowled,

"Somethin' about this funny to you asshole?"

"Dean – ,"

I tugged on his hand a little bit because a feeling in my gut was sort of churning like a turbine and telling me that the big man wasn't there to be a jerk. His warning had seemed both real and foreboding and so I wasn't too keen to watch my boyfriend beat him up.

Batista nodded at me,

"Remember what I said kid."

Dean tensed fiercely but then their rival backed up and even held his hands up in front of him like a bank thief who was cutting his losses and giving in to the police. He continued in that pose for about two more metres and then took his chance to turn his broad back, before slinking in silence right off around the corner and out of our sight.

Out of the company as well.

I shut my eyes.

"Wow."

"Princess, what _was_ that?"

Dean was standing in front of me glowering down and he looked both worried and utterly furious but I couldn't really answer because I honestly didn't know and nor had my brain had the time to process much of it, besides which I was still mildly hungover as well.

"I – ,"

"Baby girl?"

Each one of them was watching me and down to a man they all looked concerned, up to and including Seth who was still twitching like he was late for a meeting and waiting for a bus. I was used to him being sort of pumped and excitable because that was the role he filled for the team and so nothing about it seemed wrong or unusual.

I shook my head,

"He said he wanted to warn me."

"Warn you about what?"

"I don't know, he wouldn't say."

Seth waved his hands,

"What did I tell you? Hunter's just playing us."

But it didn't really feel like that and the confusion made my brain hurt until I blew a long groan out because somehow I couldn't make myself understand. Hearing it Dean pulled me in against his ribcage then fiercely pillowed my head against his chest, murmuring into my hair in gruff syllables,

"Hey, it's alright."

I nodded,

"Uh huh."

Except as it turned out _alright_ was pretty relative because not twenty minutes later, life as we knew it went to hell and blew apart the cosy little family that I had managed to build and wrap in closely around myself.

* * *

 **Yep, it's coming, but with a bit of a twist...**


	4. The Heel Turn

**So here it is, brace yourselves everybody, but as usual it has my own specific twist and hopefully tissues will be optional but not necessary although I'll let you guys be the judges of that. I really hope you're all still with me by the end of this, I promise the tone of the stories won't change, they'll still be crazy and funny and full of drama so stick with it people, this will be a** _ **good**_ **thing!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Batista finally tries to do the right thing and gets the whole Shield glaring at him for his troubles. Poor guy! Still, they're going to wish they listened to him after this one. It's going to be one of those maybe-should-have-seen-it-coming type things!**

 **Raze Olympus, Stick with evil Seth for a bit, plus, who said he's totally evil? I mean, everybody has two sides am I right? He certainly won't be the Seth we know and love anymore, but that doesn't mean that real Seth has gone, he's just...um...very, very deeply hidden! Lol!**

 **Minnie1015, I know, I was in two minds whether to even write this story but it was a pretty big moment in the history of the Shield, so I had to give it a go! No tissues but you might have to brace yourself, life is going to be different after this (for them, not you, it isn't that good a chapter!)**

 **Mandy, I still think Seth is an asset to these stories, even after this next chapter. Him being on the other side kind of makes him more interesting, so hopefully as we go on I can continue to tease that out, besides, I'm not going to make him too evil, I love him too much (same as you!)**

 **Skovko, There is always room for redemption in my stories! Kane had his (secret) hero moment, Batista tried (well, sort of) to help, so maybe down the line there will be hope for our Seth too? I mean, at least we know he comes good again at** _ **some**_ **point!**

 **AngelsDestiny22, Yep, the Breakdown of the Shield is never a happy moment, but I'm actually really excited about this story (and especially their next one) because it means being able to have a whole new dynamic and evil Seth mixing things up. Hope this chapter doesn't make you too sad!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Thank you! Yeah, I know, really big** _ **uh-oh**_ **in this story and in this next chapter in particular too. You probably already know what's coming but hopefully you're going to have fun reading it anyway (plus there's a twist!)**

 **Come on everyone, let's bite the bullet and do this...**

* * *

 **The Heel Turn**

In the nine or so months I had been involved with the company, entering the ring had become easier but still weird and I wasn't too sure that I would ever get used to trampling in through the arena and the outstretched hands of the braying crowd. Granted I wasn't as jittery as I used to be and had even taken to occasionally giving out high fives, but only very very sporadically and then mostly to held up babies and smiling kids.

It wasn't a part of the show that I enjoyed much, but given recent events I'd had precious little choice since the fact that I had been drugged and kidnapped by my father meant that there was no way I could swan around backstage all on my own.

My running job therefore was out with last year's colors –

Meanwhile my glorified valet job was _in_ and as the usual bass line bellowed into the concessions hall, the doors were flung open and we were hastily ushered on.

"Go, go."

Seth took up the front spot like always and burst through the seating taking the cheering in his stride. It was funny but just months ago the arena would have booed them, but having beaten my father had tipped the fan scales by a mile and instead their music and actual appearances were greeted like the actual second coming had arrived.

Dean went next with our hands glued together since he still didn't trust me very far from his sight, Batista or otherwise. I was simply a danger magnet and so in large crowds of people, or backstage or really _anywhere_ his natural instinct was to glare and hold on tight.

Roman was last up as our usual rear marker and trotting in between them made me feel like a queen. It was empowering and safe and where I liked being, other than wrapped up with my hunky boyfriend in bed.

Reaching the barriers Dean quickly swung over and then Roman helped me hop up onto the padding by my hips, whereupon his brother wrapped his hands around my elbows and steadied me as I hopped almost bunny-like down. It bothered me a little than in nine months of entries, I hadn't yet managed to scale the barricade on my own, except for the time I had chased after Bray Wyatt and that had been clumsy and with no sort of flair. If I was going to keep heading out with The Shield boys then I needed to find a better technique and so resolved to maybe practising a little in the arena before the show the following night.

Perhaps I would even learn to swan dive like Seth did?

Okay, so that _might_ have been an idea too far.

Leaving me by the steps, they clambered up through the ring ropes and I stood and looked on as they swaggered around, each of them puffed up and full of alpha maleness that as usual seemed to be particularly strong from Dean. He was standing with his legs spread apart at hip distance and was looking around with his fingers tightly clenched.

It honestly felt as though he owned the ring entirely _._

He was scorchingly hot and _I_ was his girl.

In one taped up hand he was holding a microphone and being their group's main talker it was him that spoke first, waiting until the lights from their grand entrance had quit their swirling and then having to pause for longer as the cheering died down.

I grinned.

 _Yep_.

That was my boyfriend –

Hero of the hour who had slayed the big bad boss, not to mention his two other total asshole lackeys, some of whom liked to get drunk and aggressive and attack defenceless women who were locked up and trapped. Although thinking about _that_ made my knees begin to shiver and I so pushed it down roughly.

Randy couldn't get me now.

Dean's voice brought me out further from my reverie and at the sound of its gruff and husky complexion I trembled again but in a very good way. His tones were like sandpaper but so hugely sort of manly and beautiful to my ears that I couldn't help but grin.

I was a lucky and very happy idiot.

Dean Ambrose was the one who had made me that way.

"How do we look?"

The crowd whooped and whistled and I snorted because I loved when he was quirky and fired up. His tongue slid out and ghosted his lip line and I bit down a squeak since _holy gods_ was it hot. He was never more at ease and in control than on the squared mat and so watching him was magical and a total turn on.

"Because we feel great. I mean bruised and beaten up for sure, because last night we faced our biggest challenge to date. A no holds barred elimination match – ,"

I wavered, then briefly allowed my eyelids to snap shut since I didn't especially want to remember the sledgehammer being driven into his copper blonde head. Dean continued or maybe hadn't faltered since I seemed to have missed a line of what was being said.

 _Oops_.

Bad girlfriend.

I resolved to listen harder since the speech and the moment was monumental to say the least, because there they were at the top of the mountain having defeated their greatest rivals and potentially the best the business had. Without them The Shield were the undisputed champions and that turned them into legends.

 _Listen to him_ –

Oh yeah.

"Now _that_ is what I call total domination."

Evidently my man and I were of a like mind and knowing it only made me beam a little wider which he picked up on as he swaggered around the ring, throwing me a wink that made my heart flutter before handing the speaking duties over to Seth.

"Adapt or perish, that was the whole deal right?"

His voice was slurred with a measure of smugness that I couldn't help but snort at because he was twisting the knife in and teaming with his brother to verbally beat my father down and let everybody there know exactly who was in charge.

 _Go boys_.

Dean held a fist up in exaggerated arrogance and then nudged at Roman's shoulder, trying to make their big dog smile, since the three of them were pumped up and happy and contented which it was totally good to see and also pretty darn cute.

Seth ploughed on, his topic was obvious –

The earlier implosion of their enemy team and in mentioning that moment he threw in a chuckle that rumbled across the speakers like the villain from a film.

Wow.

At times he did the evil bit so well that he even very mildly put the spooks up _me_ and the pause he let hover in the air seconds afterwards only heightened that feeling and drew a shiver over the crowd. Dean was still pacing and every time he stalked past me I got a scent of his aftershave and wetted up hair and it made me tingle and bite my lip a little.

Maybe we could revisit _sexy bath time_ again?

As Seth's tones built back up to an actual crescendo I managed to snap my attentions back once more, in time for the final little line of his delivery which was poignant to say the very least.

"They were three strangers standing on the same side of the ring."

Harsh but true.

The crowd around us was silent, which I honestly couldn't remember having happened an awful lot before and it was like the three thousand people there were mesmerized and which didn't let up as Roman in to take his turn. Generally speaking he wasn't as confident as his brothers when it came to talking in front of the world, which was fine since he did the bulk of his conveying by spearing people smack bang in the middle of the gut. Seeing it was a pretty big occasion however, their powerhouse too was having his say, beginning by patting their youngest man on the shoulder and then drawing a breath in.

I held mine in as well.

"They weren't brothers, the men standing in _this_ ring are brothers."

In response to his sentence I had to bite back an _aww_ which probably would have been picked up by the microphone and therefore damaged their manly edifice quite a bit. It was nice though to hear it being said without a flicker and especially out loud for the first time since their blip, which was how I had taken to referring to their fallout because it sounded less scary than it actually had been.

The crowd around us cheered out loudly and fuelled by the moment, Dean slapped Seth in the back with his palm and then strutted off, unable to stand frozen like a kid let loose in a candy store.

Roman rumbled on,

"This is Evolution and _this_ is The Shield – ,"

He opened and closed his fingers in a visual representation of their tightly knit bond and Dean nodded pretty emphatically behind him while their younger brother stared back but otherwise remained still. Probably too flooded with adrenaline I figured, besides which my antsy boyfriend was moving a lot and so if Seth had joined in it would have looked like a dance floor.

There was no need to have the pair of them stalking around the place.

Not that Roman much seemed to care since his finishing sentence was aimed at the titantron and further amplified by an honest to goodness _mic drop_ as he flung the offending item without a blink across his shoulder and listened to his words echo out around the space,

"Randy Orton bring your ass out here so that I can break your jaw."

I gaped.

 _There's my big dog_.

But it was a nice feeling too because I knew that his anger was actually pumping mostly for me and the fact that the man he was calling out had hurt me and tried to do a hell of a lot more. Only twenty minutes earlier I had been tucked against his shoulder and physically trembling at just the thought of the man and so clearly the guys had decided between them that there and then was where they made the asshole take note. Dean was pacing and yelling at the rampway, using taunting fingers to beckon his foe out and yet as much as I wanted to see Randy suffer, I was also wildly nervous –

Well, just _because_.

Being in the same state or building as my attacker was usually a pretty big test of my resolve so being at ringside and in spitting distance of him was a terrifying prospect.

His entrance music blared out.

"Oh god."

It was loud and so I knew Dean couldn't have heard me, but he must have known my internal fears because he turned and stalked back, bumping the ring ropes as he readied himself for battle but also pausing mildly to throw a look down.

 _Princess_? _I got this_.

I nodded at him weakly and then sucked a heavy breath in to steady myself. It billowed back out in the very next second though, because two figures swaggered out and one was carrying –

Uh oh.

Randy was stood in his usual black trunk wear which often made me wonder if he even _owned_ pants, but beside him with a sledgehammer slung across his shoulder was my smugly suited father who looked unflinching to say the least. The sight of the weapon made my stomach spin tightly and the booze from the night earlier made a move to surge back up, although luckily it remained sort of frozen in my gullet by a knot of sheer terror.

I didn't like where things were going.

My father and Randy sauntered out to the ramp top as casually as if they were taking a little stroll, but the presence of the sledgehammer transformed that vision instantly into something very dangerous since The Shield were unarmed.

"Shit."

Evidently thinking over the same issue, Seth suddenly turned and swung back out through the ropes, dropping down onto the floor alongside me and stalking with purpose to where the timekeepers were sat. Moving on instinct I went across with him and then stood flapping in wild panic on the mat, babbling at him over the theme music and the jeering, yelling crowds.

"He's got the hammer again – ,"

"I know."

"I can't watch him use it again, I can't do it."

My fingers were clenching tightly in on themselves but also moving in accordance with my anxiety and not to mention my ever growing nerves. Seth turfed a crew member out of their folding chair and the poor guy essentially launched himself out as everyone fell over themselves to move from his trajectory.

Hunter and Randy began to swagger in close.

 _Crap_.

"Seth – ,"

I reached a hand out in panic and grabbed him, only fortunately this time he didn't pull away and instead turned back to stare at me oddly before shaking his head a little,

"Lauren I'm sorry, okay?"

I frowned,

"For what?"

"I'm sorry you have to see this."

I assumed he meant him slamming a steel chair into my dad which, okay, wasn't high on my list of happy viewings but was still better than watching _them_ take a heavy mallet to the head.

In response I sort of nodded,

"It's okay, I won't be mad at you."

"No, you don't get it – ,"

I mean, he's made his choice, right?"

For a second he stood and sort of blinked back at me, like I had said something groundbreaking or maybe worth writing down. In many ways it seemed like he was having an epiphany but no way was that happening.

How could it have been _then_?

Instead he nodded and his gaze swiftly hardened which was a look that I had seen about a million times before and was the one he put on when he was getting ready for brawling and which therefore likely meant that my father was going down.

"Right, he's made his choice."

Then he pulled from my grip and slid the chair and then himself back into the ring before jumping up onto his feet and proudly holding his brand new weapon, ready and willing to back his brothers up.

"In case you haven't figured it out yet – ,"

Hunter's voice cut in across his theme song and actually caught me with a jolt of surprise since I hadn't really noticed that he was holding a microphone and the fact he was speaking made me force down a bitter grunt.

Randy grinned in through the ring ropes at me maliciously and my heart stopped beating.

Dean shuffled across.

None of which stopped my father from talking in a swaggering sort of cadence that matched his pretentious gait. The sledgehammer continued to sit tucked across his shoulder and held with light fingers like he knew how to use it well and which he had pretty much proven not twenty four hours before that when he had expertly buried it into the top of my boyfriend's skull.

I shuddered.

"See, what I do better than anybody is adapt and last night was only Plan A– ,"

Was he really still on that?

Was he seriously trying to make the universe buy into him _not_ having lost in a big puff of smoke or perhaps he was attempting to somehow purge their memories of the fact that his little team of bastards was missing one. He hefted up the sledgehammer and hummed at it a little before growling over the microphone,

"Tonight is Plan B, there's _always_ a Plan B."

I blinked in alarm but the guys remained unmoving, although my ever twitchy boyfriend was still pacing a bit and in response to it and their evident dual need to get punching, Roman stepped forward to level the gulf between them in a move that left Seth stood stock still a foot behind them, with the steel chair raised up.

It was the calm before the storm.

For the most part I had expected that maybe Randy would move first, or else Dean would lose his focus and simply charge out of the ring. The arena around us was hushed with suspensefulness and to a man they were all fixated by the two men on the floor –

Which was why it was such a massive shock to the system when Seth moved in from nowhere and swung the chair at Roman's back.

Hard, _so_ hard.

I half screamed on instinct although the majority of the noise was lost beneath my hands, which flew up to cover my mouth in its entirety because I couldn't believe or start to _figure_ what I had seen. Roars burst up from the seating around me, but I heard them at a mumble through all the panic in my head and merely continued to gape brokenly in front of me.

It was a mistake right?

It _had_ to be a mistake?

A tear bubbled up into my wide eyes,

"Seth no – ,"

Back up in the ring, poor Roman had buckled forward and flopped almost limply onto the bouncing bottom rope while Dean stood staring in horror at his brother and looking backwards and forwards trying to work out what had gone on. Clearly like me he was struggling to get his head around why their much loved kid sibling would have planted the hit and I felt my heart shatter at his wounded expression.

It was something that I never _ever_ wanted to see again.

Beyond the ropes Hunter and Randy were laughing and exchanging smug glances like they were having a great time and in the moment I had to fight down the urge to storm around to them and take my new slapping _-_ palm to both of them in turn.

Fears be damned –

They were ruining _everything_ and my anger on that front fast enveloped my fright, because how dare the pair of them take pleasure in what was happening and the breaking of a family, which was what the three men before them were.

Still _could_ be right?

Dean stepped towards his teammate however and that hope quickly faded as Seth swung the chair back and buried the arch into the middle of Dean's ribcage which I knew was still smarting from his beating the night before.

"No – ," I shrieked,

My boyfriend blew a pained grunt out then tilted forwards to expose his _also_ highly bruised back and I knew in an instant that I couldn't stand by and watch things without in some shape or form trying to physically help. After all, Dean had swept in and saved _my_ ass so often that he had more than earnt me having his back and although I wasn't sure how I could actually change things, the one thing I knew was that he needed my support.

"Dean – ,"

I was up on the apron before I even realized it and then stumbling clumsily in through the ropes, hurtling forward on nothing more than instinct and a bolt of adrenaline I didn't even know I'd had.

 _Get there, get there_.

I only had one focus and it filled up the entirety of my limited gaze. Seth was throwing the chair up into the stratosphere, ready to bring the unforgiving metal back down and for a second I wasn't sure that I was going to make it but at the very last second I piled into my man and knocked him out of the path of the spine shot –

Although it then thudded down onto the base of my head.

There was a gasp from the crowd that I only heard in passing before I hit the mat face first and then promptly passed out, being swallowed by blackness and a sense of foreboding as the horrible events were lost in my head.

* * *

 **Uh oh, so I decided to slightly switch up the big heel turn by not having it go exactly to plan. Would anyone like to take a guess on Dean's mood in the next chapter? Sneaky hint: it isn't good!**


	5. Tears On My Pillow

**So then, are we ready to continue after that big old cliffhanger? I hope the answer is yes because here we go again and if anyone ordered panicky, protective Dean with a side order of worried Roman, then good news because your order is up!**

 **Mandy, Oh wow, thank you for saying that. I read that last chapter back and couldn't figure out if it flowed well or not, so you saying it's your favorite definitely helped to answer that question on my part! More Seth coming up, but you'll have to wait another chapter, this one is all about our main couple (and the big dog, he's here too!)**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Yep, poor old Seth, Lauren even manages to mess up his big old heel turn moment! What's a turncoat Shield member to do huh?! You're totally right that Dean isn't happy. Let's just say that he goes through a whole range of varied emotions in this chapter though!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger...actually, I'm lying, I'm not sorry at all! But I'm not going to keep you waiting any longer to find out what happens, so read away! Hope you enjoy the fallout of Seth's heel turn! *Crosses fingers***

 **Minnie1015, I'm evil alright, my middle name is misery (love that song). Kinda thought the twist of putting Lauren in the middle felt right since she's always in the mix somewhere unintentionally! Plus, I think we've all established by now that furious, worried and protective boyfriend Dean is the best thing there is and has been since sliced bread. Good news, your three day wait is done!**

 **Sodapop25, Heehee, thank you! In return for your review, please accept both some super super sweet and super super angry Dean in this chapter, purely for your reading pleasure!**

 **HannonsPen, Oops, I hope you've been able to hold out for the last three days without chain smoking your way through too many cigarettes?! But yeah, I will admit the last chapter was pretty crazy. Kelly will make an appearance in this story, I love her too much to leave her out, but for the most we have Dean in murder mode, so I hope that will suffice instead!**

 **Skovko, I HATED having to watch the turn back for this story, it still makes me curl up like I'm watching it live. Bad Seth, very bad Seth! And of course Lauren blunders into the middle of it. At this point it's almost a given that if something is happening, she will end up trampling through the fire, she is the original disaster zone alright...but that's what makes it so fun, right?!**

 **Wakey, wakey Lauren...**

* * *

 **Tears On My Pillow**

I woke up slowly and a lot like I was swimming through some sort of stormy and unrelenting fog or possibly as if I was driving through bad weather with the windshield wipers flashing back and forth to fix the view. There were noises nearby but they were pretty indiscriminate and so didn't give any hints about where I was or why and the worrying thing was that the more I tried to focus and remember what had happened, the more I came up blank.

"Ugh – ,"

I scrunched my closed eyes in a little tighter and then wrinkled my nose at a pounding in my skull, twisting myself down deeper into the bedsheets and my movement triggering a worried voice from my side,

"Princess?"

"Nuh – ," I mumbled, "Gimme f've m're min'tes."

My words sounded stumbled and groggy with sleep but in response to them a hand passed over my browline and swept back my hair with a warm familiarity that cut through the confusion because it meant Dean was there.

His voice rumbled back,

"Princess open your eyes for me."

"Head h'rts – ,"

"I know baby, _please_ open your eyes."

He sounded so fractured and unusually pleading that I did what he said through confusion alone and lifted my lids like a pair of heavy shutters before wincing at the brightness of the overhead lights. Really the things were so completely unrelenting that I almost retreated back to the darkness again, but then a pair of blue orbs and a face swung in over me and blocked out the unpleasantness.

I smiled weakly.

Dean.

His hair was still damp and plastered down across his forehead and the fingers smoothing my hair back were still wrapped up in tape, which made me frown at him a little because they usually meant showtime yet we were still apparently in bed.

I whimpered in confusion.

" _Easy_ , easy baby, don't try to move."

"I – I don' underst'nd."

Dean blew a breath out then leaned in towards me, moving in closer until we were touching our heads and evidently using the skin to skin contact to center himself against heaven only knew what. His thumbs rose up to cup my cheekbones and then ghost their way across the rosy glow he found as he shook just a little and muttered back gruffly in tones of relief,

"Thank fuck, thank fuck."

It was obvious that he was trying his best not to hurt me, while at the same moving in as close as he could. I blinked in response but let him do it anyway since whatever was happening, I liked having him near.

"Wha – wha' happen'd?"

It was another voice that answered and in deep low tones that I also knew well. Turning my head beyond the crook of my boyfriend's elbow, I searched the room for the familiar face and found it sat in a chair beneath the window and gazing across soberly albeit with relief.

"You're okay baby girl,"

"But, where am I?"

"Hospital."

"Huh?"

I was confused to say the least and it showed as I again scrunched my nose up in addlement because how could I be in hospital when I wasn't even sick? The last thing that I could feasibly remember I had been standing in concessions waiting to head down to the ring and although I had been a little bit nervous I hadn't been sick.

What had gone on since then?

I blinked,

"Is it 'cos I drank too much las' night?"

Roman smiled fondly across the space at me,

"No, that made you rowdy, not concussed."

"I have _concussion_?"

From above and around me Dean's grip grew tighter and he blew out a breath that was so near to my hairline that it ruffled my parting and made me snort a little bit, since not only did it tickle but it was also cool and soothing against the heavy thudding.

He roughly kissed my head,

"Fuckin' scared the shit outta me Princess, you know that?"

"I – I'm sorry."

I didn't know what else to say, added to which I was still pretty spacey and in the moment not sure if the whole problem had been my fault. It probably had been on some level though I figured, because I was usually pretty clumsy.

I had likely banged my head.

Maybe I had even gone face first down the arena steps and bounced my skull off a flip seat or the floor, since that would have easily been a _Lauren_ type accident and therefore unsurprising.

Dean smacked another kiss against my temple,

"Already told you once to stop sayin' that."

"Sorry?"

He snorted and then shook his head, finally releasing his possessive little bear hug and then pulling himself back and staring down at my face. His thumbs remained clamped like warming pads to my cheekbones and I hummed at their feel and raised my hand to cover them up –

At which point I noticed something clamped to my finger and attached to a wire which snaked off right down the bed and which I peered at in total and unfettered bewilderment since it hadn't been there before.

"D-Dean, what's that?"

Putting his hand across it sort of soothingly, he took it out of sight by pushing my arm down and then dropped his head so he could lean in to kiss my nose tip and grumble right against me,

"S' alright, it's there to help."

"Um, help what?"

Roman moved against the chair back and the cheap faux leather sort of squeaked under his weight. It made me turn my head again towards him and his deep brown eyes comforted me an added extra little bit.

"You took a head knock baby girl, they were worried, that lil' thing was keeping tabs on your heart."

"So I did fall down the stairs?"

Both burly men exchanged glances and in the moment I could feel a buzz of tension lace Dean's arms which drew them in a little closer around me, like he wanted to push me right into his chest and keep me there like a bird in an aviary where I likely couldn't trip up and injure myself again,

My boyfriend grumbled,

"You didn't fall Lauren."

"Then, what happened?"

My voice sounded small and probably was because the addlement was frightening and almost more than anything I simply wanted to understand. I felt my breast heave with fear and confusion and Dean's finger slid up and swept a tear off my cheek, at which point I realized that I was very lightly crying and which seemed to break his heart,

"Baby you're okay. An' I swear to god m' gonna fuckin' kill him for it, he can do that shit to me but never to you. I'm gonna wrap my hands around his throat until his eyes burst – ,"

"But kill _who_ , what's going on?"

Lifting himself up from where he was still pressed tight against me, Dean shuffled his ass up onto the bed and then dropped an arm across the big nest of pillows that was built up behind me as he growled out a breath. Roman looked up expectantly but on seeing the expression, he thankfully decided to take charge of things himself and swiped a hand across his lips somewhat haltingly before licking them again and then finally speaking up,

"What's the last thing you remember tonight Lauren?"

"Um," I blinked, "Going down to the ring?"

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"You sure? Think for me baby girl."

In response I frowned a little but then did what he said, aware that the whole time their gazes were on me and watching protectively.

I couldn't remember much –

Mostly just flashes and slivers of moments which I couldn't even split between reality and dreams. Hunter was in them and so was Randy who made me shudder and in response to the sudden little tremor across my system, Dean's arm dropped down swiftly and very carefully pulled me close. I peered around the room, hoping to fill a few gaps in but getting nothing from it except plain painted white walls and the fact that there was a crucial man missing from their usual unbreakable three person brotherhood.

Where was Seth?

I was actually right in the process of voicing that when another bank of memories began to roll on through, fuzzy at first and sort of jumbled together but slowly getting clearer the more I focused in. Their missing younger brother featured in them pretty heavily and I had a sudden image of him stood in front of me, telling me that he was sorry about something although my concussion fogged brain was really struggling to know what.

"Hunter and Randy – ,"

"Yeah, those assholes were there too."

But they were clearly not the reason for my painfully thumping skull and so I resigned myself to heading on back to the drawing board and as I woke a little further, I attempted to sit up. Dean moved at once to help hold me upright and then slid the big pillows a little further up my back and I clung onto his smooth broad forearm like a grappling hook and used its big muscles to heave myself up.

"Whoa."

My world sort of spun on its axis for a moment but then thankfully managed to settle back down, although I kept a tight grip around my boyfriend's elbow to avoid from planting sideways and therefore right out of the bed.

"Princess?"

"I'm okay, things just feel a little spotty."

"Probably because you're shiftin' around, just sit back an' take it easy already will ya?"

He was like an adorably frazzled sort of mother hen and given that he had already clearly been through the wringer, I nodded and allowed him to settle me back, watching with a dazed sort of beam as he flapped round me, pulling up the covers and then tucking them in.

The room I had been put in was spacious and airy, with a television mounted up high on the wall and for some bizarre reason tuned into the shopping channels like the hospital-bound were prone to stupid impulse buys. There was a woman on the screen largely grinning like an idiot and pointing to a variation on the humble fold up chair, which judging from her beaming was good for most occasions, including picnics, fishing and when the family came round.

I blinked at it slowly.

A fold-up chair?

It hit me like a thunderbolt and I gasped out loud, my entire face falling in a mask of pure horror that made the two men around me almost physically seize up, assuming that something terrible had happened but then slowly clueing into it with a shared look.

 _Oh_.

"Seth – Seth _hit_ you."

I was gaping at Roman who seemed to be sitting at something of a slump and making sure that his back didn't touch the seat too readily and which I totally hadn't picked up on before. He blew out a breath in response to my remembrance and then nodded slowly,

"Yeah baby girl, he did."

"But why?"

Dean reached a hand up into my hairline and started to sweep his fingers roughly through and peering up at him it was obvious it was an angry thing and that he didn't even realize that he was making the move at all.

"Good fuckin' question. That backstabbin' little chicken shit, stood up there with those assholes lookin' all proud while you were lyin' on the mat not fuckin' movin' and lookin' like you were – ,"

He broke off with an angry growl and in response I lifted my monitor clad hand up and caught his fingers to wrap in my own. It brought his blue eyes quickly swinging in towards me and as they landed on my face I saw the fury shiver down. He pulled me in to tuck underneath his elbow and then dropped his chin to rest lightly on my head, clearly not wanting to push down on it too hard because the thing was still thumping.

I wondered why that was?

He thumbed my cheek,

"Thought I'd lost you Princess, didn't wanna fuckin' go on without my girl."

"Um yeah, about that, I mean, what exactly happened?"

"You jumped in and pushed my ass outta the way, took a damn headshot an' hit the deck because of it."

I blinked in total bewilderment,

"From _Seth_?"

For whatever reason it seemed so unlikely that I couldn't seem to make all the crazy pieces fit and nor could I buy into the big reveal of my attacker because the man they were accusing was their brother and my friend. Although, with that said I had seen him hit Roman and so it therefore stood to reason that he'd been going to hit Dean and if I knew anything about my love for my boyfriend then it was probably highly likely that I would have tried to step in.

So, to summarize then, the whole thing was plausible but utterly confusing –

"But, you're a team."

Dean shook his head and his chin scrubbed my hairline in a move that was a little like he was trying to grate cheese. He kept me tucked in close to him still though, like he didn't trust me not to find trouble again and given my track record that was likely a wise decision.

"Not anymore, not after what he did to you."

"But wasn't it an accident?"

"Princess, he'd already swung that thing one time and he was straight up anglin' to hit me with it again, so it doesn't fuckin' matter if he didn't meant to hurt you, he _did_ and that's what matters. The second he touched you his ass was dead. He's not our teammate or our brother. He's one of _them_ now."

I blinked through my headache,

"One of who?"

Roman sighed heavily and then pulled a weary face at me, like he was downright exhausted by all the stress they had been through and I got the impression that they had probably discussed it and then a whole bunch more while I had been fast asleep.

He grunted a little,

"He works for your dad now."

My mouth fell open and I actually gasped,

" _No_ , no, he wouldn't – ,"

Because it didn't seem possible that my adopted older brother would want to throw in his lot like that. Not given everything my father had done to me and not to mention what god damn Randy had done. Did that mean the two of them were actual teammates? Was he really going to bat for the asshole who had burst in on me, pinned me down and tried to force me to have sex?

Seth had seen my makeshift prison cell –

He _couldn't_ be okay with that.

"I want to see."

Dean blinked in confusion and then leaned himself back so he could stoop towards my face, probably thinking that I was having a breakdown or a moment of brain injury but I was fully sincere. In fact I had never been more positive about anything because although it would hurt I wanted to know what had gone down and I wanted to see what had happened with my own eyes.

My boyfriend shook his head,

"Princess – ,"

"It will be online by now and I don't want to be the only person who hasn't seen it."

"M' not lettin' you do it."

I huffed a little,

"Roman, please?"

He faltered in response and his eyes found out his brother in a silent but sort of permission-granting-thing and in response Dean blew a hugely frustrated growl out but waved his hand around in unhappy agreement,

"Fine."

Naturally though, the second he said it, I started to weirdly wish that he'd said no and had maybe stamped his big foot a little harder because I suddenly began to dread what would flash up on the screen. Part of me honestly couldn't quite believe the story but I was horribly sure that it was also pretty real, since the two men in front of me wouldn't be lying and not about something so serious.

I held my breath.

Roman pulled his phone out and shuffled towards me, dragging the chair with a screech across the floor and then giving me a tiny apologetic little brow lift as it made me screw my eyes up as it drilled through my head. I ducked down into Dean and tried to drown the noise out by burying my ears into his familiar black vest, noting for the first time that they were still in their work clothes which meant they had obviously scooped me up and run.

Another great thought that helped my nerves a whole bunch.

Oh no, wait a minute.

It didn't help at all.

"You sure you want to see this shit baby girl?"

I nodded but at the same time cuddled closer into Dean and he replied by placing his chin back on my crown again and then looking away like he didn't want to see. Possibly he didn't if he'd meant what he'd said earlier about thinking for a second that I had been dead. Maybe it was cruel him even having to _remember_ it far less having it playing in the background.

But I needed to know.

"Alright, here it is."

Roman handed his phone across and I took it with a centring sort of half a breath. Sure enough he had pushed it forward to the moment that was the last I recalled with any sort of full sense and the moment that Seth had swung the chair through the ether like a wrecking ball and hit his bigger brother's back. Roman toppled forward and I flinched for him on instinct although the camera then panned directly to Dean and in particular his look of outright confusion mixed in with horror which I flashed back to as well and it made me bite my lip so fiercely it actually hurt a little bit.

 _Ow_.

As Dean stumbled forward Seth again swung his weapon and drove it straight into my baffled boyfriend's ribs and at once I put a hand out and laid it across them because although it was too late I still wanted to quell the hurt. I could tell he wasn't watching and the sound was mostly muted, but he shifted his head slightly and gave my hairline a kiss, telling me that not only did he know which part I'd got to but that he also appreciated me showing that I cared.

Not that it saved me from wincing a little as Seth threw the chair up into the air again –

I knew what was coming, or on some level I thought I did and either way I knew it would suck big time to watch. My head was still pounding after all, so on that basis the crack to my cranium must have been pretty big.

 _Uh oh_.

Yep.

There I was, flying across the ring in a clumsy little run and essentially shoulder-charging Dean out of the picture and replacing his bent body with my much smaller frame. Given that the missile had been centred on my boyfriend, it was by no means adjusted for a tiny woman's height so therefore the steel came down unrelentingly and caught me flush on the base of the head. My hair flicked back as my neck snapped upwards and I crumpled in an instant, fairly _gracefully_ to the floor. In response the crowd and commentary went nuts around us but all I could see in that moment was Seth's face and the wide eyed blink of total confusion not to mention the heavy layers of remorse.

Remorse?

I peered closer but it didn't make a difference because that's what I could see beyond anything else. He hadn't meant to hurt me for even a second and he felt bad about it.

"He – he looks upset."

Dean grumbled darkly into my beach waves,

"He nearly killed you, knew I was gonna kick his fuckin' ass."

Roman stayed quiet but when I caught his expression I could tell that he was pretty much thinking the same thing and that for all of the backstabbing and heartbreaking he had done to them, he had never intentionally set out to injure me and therefore was still their brother deep down inside.

Deep, _deep_ inside though.

Like all the way down.

Back on the screen Dean had just about recovered enough of his senses to have figured out what had gone wrong and was crawling across the matting towards me with a look of desolation that made me search for his hand. I found it nestling in safely against my hip bone and seized it up fiercely as I fought a tear down, then watched feeling awful as his screen form scooped up my body before pressing it against him and trying his best to wake me up. He was pawing my hair back and rocking me lightly and was swiftly joined by Roman also looking choked up and in a flash I got why the two of them seemed weary.

For my poor battered boys it had been a _very_ bad night.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault baby girl, none of this mess is."

"But if I hadn't dived in – ,"

"You were saving your man and protecting my uso, trust me, you don't gotta apologize for that."

Roman sitting there being the easy voice of wisdom was reassuring to the both of us because I then felt Dean exhale and the tension briefly dropped clean out of his shoulders as his best friend began to do his _older brother thing._

"So you're saying I'm a hero?"

Dean snorted,

"Don't push it,"

But he kissed my head again all the same and in a fond little smack that revealed a certain lightness like maybe for a second he felt that things just might have been vaguely alright. Turning my attentions back to the cell phone, I was surprised to find medics rushing down to the ring and swarming my motionless and poor crumpled body as the earlier version of my boyfriend swept stressed hands through his hair all the while yelling and pushing at the people who were trying to muscle in and take charge of my battered shape.

"That's a lot of people."

"I wanted to punch every one of 'em."

He wasn't kidding either –

Roman was holding him back and occasionally staring daggers up towards the rampway where the beleaguered looking cameraman finally decided to turn the lens. Seth was stood with Randy and my father, their hands raised in a triumph that actually hurt.

I was down and unconscious?

Did that really not matter?

But as the camera zoomed in, I realized that it did because while my once attacker was grinning like a madman, both Hunter and Seth were sort of looking glassy eyed and trying to downplay their lashings of anxiety which were at once both annoying and oddly sort of nice.

 _Ugh_.

I dropped the phone down onto the blankets, not prepared to watch a single frame more, since my head was both thumping and also newly spinning with the horrible events that had ripped apart my world.

"Where do they get off being worried about me?"

I totally didn't mean to say it out loud and yet the words tumbled out in a burst of exasperation that I couldn't hold back because it didn't seem fair. How could two people do something so terrible and then show remorse like ordinary folk? How did they even manage to think up the warped scenario if they weren't through and through evil?

It didn't make any sense.

Dean grunted back and then lifted his head off me having sensed that I had finally stopped watching it all and his voice was gruff with still swirling anger,

"They're not worried Lauren, how the fuck did you think they were?"

I shook my head then pointed to the cell phone which was paused on the moment before it went to lock screen and then wiggled my fingers over their expressions,

"They feel bad, both of them."

"Sorry Princess, no way – _no way_ could they just walk off an' leave you lyin' there. No one would pull that kinda shit if they cared. Besides which, do you see either one of 'em sittin' here?"

I shook my head a little in reluctance,

"Well, no."

"That's because they're fuckin' not and its another damn reason I'm gonna make him take his last breath."

From out of nowhere I began to sniffle and in such a burst of unexpected sadness that it startled my two concerned minders to hell and even drove the ire from my furious boyfriend who blinked for a moment before hauling me in close and pillowing my head down into his breastbone as I seized up his vest like I'd been shipwrecked for months.

"Dean, I can't – ,"

"Fuck, m' sorry Princess, m' not gettin' heated at you here, alright?"

I snivelled against him miserably like a child,

"It's all broken."

"What is baby?"

"This family. It's all gone. I'm always losing people, w-why do they always leave me?"

Dean pulled me as close as he could feasibly get and shifted round a little so that his shoulder could loom over me and seal me off in a cocoon of aftershave and love. He shushed me against my hair and then kissed at my temple in tiny little pecks that he clearly hoped would help, all the while murmuring words he knew I needed and that I knew he also _meant_ –

"M' not goin' anywhere Princess, you'll always have me, that's not changin'."

"Same here baby girl, your ass is gonna be stuck with me a long time, yours too uce."

It was a pretty sweet thing for him to offer out to us and all sorts of warming and affirming as well and yet still the rolling misery continued to rumble because although I had them both and I knew that completely I still hated vehemently the schism in our world and I was mourning the loss of someone I had cared for but who had betrayed us all in the worst possible way.

What was even real any longer?

Was there any sort of chance it was all a mistake, or that maybe Seth would wake up in the cold lonely daylight and come skittering back to us, on his knees for what he'd done? Dean would probably be a hard sell on that one, but I was sure that if Seth asked then he would let him come home. After all, Dean had loved Seth as much I did, _more_ in fact and the same with Roman too. In fact it was massively unfair that I was sobbing when it likely what each of them both needed to do.

I swiped my cheeks and looked up,

"We're still a family."

It wasn't a question and so they didn't reply but each of them burnt back my keen gaze firmly and Dean further helped with a kiss to the lips, which was claiming and relieved and so very grateful and pulled me from the gloom of my sad reverie. When I fell asleep dragged back into the darkness a mere twenty minutes later, they were still both there with me.

"Go 'head an' sleep baby, m' still gonna be here."

I snuggled in closer and dropped clean away.

* * *

 **I thought a little bit of bonding was needed between them after everything that had happened.**

 **Next chapter...Lauren gets a visitor, but who is it?**


	6. Apologize

**Hospital visiting hours are open, so who do we have coming to pay our girl a call? This turned out be to be one of my favourite chapters, so I hope you like it too. I'll keep my fingers crossed!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Um, yeah, you might be right on your guess for this one, but I hoping that's a good thing right? Either way, there's a lot that needs to be cleared up in this one and a certain somebody has a lot of explaining to do! Happy reading!**

 **Sodapop25, Aww, thank you, I certainly will, there are plenty more ups and downs to come on this rollercoaster, including this next chapter which kinda fills some gaps in. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Oooh, nice guesses, but I'm going to be really mean and not tell you so that you have to read it and find out for yourself (is that mean...yeah...I'm mean) but hopefully whoever it is that turns up, you'll enjoy it regardless!**

 **Mandy, Haha, I know how much you love your Seth (in whatever guise he's in) so hopefully this next installment will meet with your approval. Also always super glad to make your day and especially with Lauren and Dean. I love when people heart them as much as I do because I love writing them so freaking much!**

 **Guest (Minnie), Dean snuggles are the worst to write because it's so horrible having to imagine what they would be like...KIDDING! There will always be Dean snuggles in these stories! I figure that Seth had to feel a little bit bad on some level. But as for her visitor…*walks off whistling***

 **Skovko, Yeah, but I figure the TV would be on in the background so that silence didn't drive Dean totally crazy while he was sitting there waiting for her to wake up. Otherwise I'm pretty sure he would have smashed up a nurses' station or kicked a plant over...maybe not, he loves plants!**

 **Daryl's Lady, Oh god, I know, I hate having to watch them break up, especially knowing that they wanted to keep The Shield going! But luckily it translates into a good Lauren and Dean story (I hope) so maybe I can forgive creative now! Thank you so much for reviewing, means a lot!**

 **Who is our guest then?**

* * *

 **Apologize**

At some point in the early or possibly the late morning since I was simply too addled and sort of sleep fogged to really know, Roman packed Dean off to the hotel to pick our bags up and to shave and have a shower.

Not that he had wanted to go –

He'd been forced to since his brother had been adamant about the sweat smell and the salient fact that we would all shortly be heading home, just as soon as the doctors saw fit to discharge me which meant then getting onto a four hour flight. Roman was driving to visit relatives in the rental and so his valid point was that it didn't matter how _he_ smelt, whereas Dean would be pressed up in coach with other people who could possibly complain.

I'd been awake throughout their talk.

Or – okay – not awake but semi-conscious and so I had very vaguely known that my boyfriend was heading off and which he had further underlined by bending in to kiss me, while carding through my long hair and stroking my head,

"Princess, I'm gonna be back in _like_ an hour, the big dog's gonna keep an eye on you, alright?"

I had nodded a little in a sleepy sort of apathy but then reached up and tangled my fingers in his vest, pulling him in closer like I was trying to hug him although I was frankly so exhausted that precious little else worked.

I had mumbled at him,

"Love you."

Dean had snorted, but given me another gentle kiss,

"Back atcha kid."

After that I had drifted off again into the darkness but it was okay because in spite of it I knew that Roman was still there and I trusted him implicitly to faithfully watch over me and which rewarded me hours later when I blinked into the light –

Daylight this time however, streaming through the cheap blinds and painting the room with a milky morning glow that highlighted the big dog curled up in the small visiting chair and snorting very softly while his lips made fluttering sounds. My head was still pounding but I was sort of getting used to it, besides which at one stage I had woken very fleetingly to a nurse holding out a pain pill pot and so I figured that they were also helping to make things mildly better.

But there something they couldn't do though.

I needed to pee and with a hot and panicky, bladder-tensing sort of intensity that was possibly the reason I had been roused from my sleep, although I wasn't too sure I was allowed out of bed yet because while I hadn't been instructed that I couldn't move anywhere I had also not been told in any sense that I _could_.

"Damn it."

I hissed and then threw back the covers before carefully swinging my legs around. They felt kind of heavy which was possibly just weight gain but I figured that it was slightly more likely to be my head, not to mention my overly battered body which seemed to be tender and sensitive _everywhere_. Putting my toes down sent a shiver through my system, because the plain white linoleum floor was horrifically cold and wasn't much helped by the fact that I was clad in a hospital gown and absolutely nothing else.

"Where are my clothes?"

My bladder tightened crossly and cut off that musing before it could take proper hold and I shuffled across to the small adjoining bathroom to sort out the problem before my renal system could explode. It felt a little weird to be up on my feet again, almost like I had been sleeping for days instead of hours and my head still pounded and swam around on me a little as if I were trudging through a faraway haze. Dean and the others may have been used to concussion, but I on the other hand was patently not and that reason, coupled with the feeling _spaced out_ thing was enough to make my mind up on not having it again.

 _Nope_.

No thank you.

It was a one time only gig.

Because the thin gown was a wraparound kimono thing, getting it hitched up was a bit of a bind and I was still trying to pull it into a semblance of modesty as I emerged back out into my airy digs again. Roman – the big sweetheart – was continuing to rumble in the soft and cosseting folds of deep sleep, so I tried my best to tiptoe back quietly and not disturb his slumber.

"Ahem."

Someone lightly cleared their throat and I whipped my head around hurriedly to the doorway, expecting to see a physician or a nurse and instead setting my eyes on the one person in history that I would never in my life have expected to see there.

"Seth?"

My hiss was far louder than I had intended and in response to it, Roman grunted then shuffled down a little more and his errant younger brother stiffened in panic and flapped his hands at me, in a silent but fully readable _keep your voice down_. For a second or two it even seemed kind of normal, like maybe we were all just back in the locker room and the sense of familiarity was utterly comforting –

Until I suddenly remembered everything that had gone on.

I frowned at him,

"What – what are you doing here?"

He flapped at me again with frustratedly coaxing fingers in an attempt to beckon me further out into the hall and therefore away from the catnapping Samoan who would have no doubt beaten him pulp-like if he woke up too soon. In response to it however I paused pretty uneasily, since I wasn't so sure that I knew Seth anymore or for that matter what stepping out from my sick bay would potentially land me right in the middle of.

Brown eyes rolled at me,

"For god sakes, I won't hurt you, get out here already."

 _Ha_.

He wasn't serious with that?

No way could he honestly have been standing in front of me as I shivered with a concussion that he himself had caused, while taking offence at not being trusted like I was simply being dramatically histrionic about it all.

"You hit me in the head with a chair."

I was still whispering, because the poor battered big dog needed his beauty sleep and therefore _didn't_ need himself getting arrested for murdering his former brother with his bare hands on a hospital ward. Seth sucked a breath in like the words had sort of stung him but then simply and resolutely tried to beckon me out again and frankly more through instinct than any real conviction, I huffed a grumpy noise out and then did what he said.

"Fine."

He promptly stalked off a little way down the corridor and with such long strides that I could barely keep up, besides which my head and my walking were still stumbly and I wasn't prepared to fall just to match my pace to his. When he stopped it was beside an empty waiting area, next to a potted palm plant and a vending machine as well, at which point it occurred to me how empty my gut was and that I had skipped both breakfast and lunch the day before.

 _Oooh, mars bars_.

"Why in the world did you do it, you idiot?"

I blinked as I realized that he was talking to me and that for some unknown reason he was actually furious, with his hands balled up into fists and everything. To say that I didn't really follow his thinking was putting it pretty freaking mildly and _then_ some because I genuinely couldn't even start to unravel what his beef was and why he was so damn pent up about it all.

"Uh, excuse me?"

"You shouldn't have been in there."

"Last night?"

"Of course last night, what else would I mean?"

"Um – ,"

"You screwed my god damn plan up Lauren."

"Your plan to betray your family you mean?"

My words flashed out a lot sharper than I'd bet on although frankly I hadn't really bet on them at all, because my scattered brain was still trying to organize the details while my tongue, evidently, was firing on its own. In response to it however, I felt myself grow angry as flashes of the video came flooding right back, including Dean's face and the way he had held me like his world had imploded.

In many ways it had.

So standing in front of the person who had caused that was enough to make my insides twist. Nobody broke my beautiful boyfriend in _any_ way but they could certainly expect a girlfriend tongue lashing if they did.

Seth snorted at me,

"Those guys aren't my family."

I read his derision as bitterness at first and raw disappointment at the scale of his actions and how badly he had broken things. But that could still be fixed. After all he was by no means the first person in the grouping to have been taken in by Hunter's flashy suits and soothing words. I too had been lured into five days' worth of captivity by the kindly and benevolent _father figure_ act. Seth wasn't to blame or at least not completely, given that my father was a tricksy sort of man and therefore I knew that in time we could rebuild things, if Seth made the moves towards apology there and then.

I smiled at him easily,

"You know you could try talking to them. I'm sure if you explained they would let you come back."

It was why I figured he had turned up at the hospital and was perfectly in line with the man I felt I knew, who was wild and ambitious but decent underneath that and loving towards his family which meant –

Well, _us_.

Instead however, Seth merely sort of blinked at me, a little like he thought I had possibly gone mad. He snorted in response and then flat out nasal-chuckled in a tone that I had often heard but no longer much liked.

"You think I'm here to make it up to those losers?"

"I – I mean I figured – ,"

"Yeah well, you figured wrong, I ain't sorry for one damn _thing_ that's happened."

"Then why are you here?"

It wasn't a challenge, I was lost in confusion and struggling to wrap my head around his brand new asshole act. Not to mention the fact that he had buried his warmth down and somehow sealed it off to become a different man and it was so far and away like he'd had a brain transplant that it made my headache fiercer and more thump _y_ feeling.

Ugh.

Seth grunted wryly then adopted an expression which was almost vaguely like he was bored of being there or perhaps like I was taking his time up which was pretty damn annoying since _he_ had called _me_ out. Given the fact that not ten hours earlier he had slammed a steel chair down on my head and then promptly aligned himself with my very worst enemies, I probably should have been far more frightened than I was, or at the very least I possibly should have felt cautious but instead I was just baffled because –

It was Seth.

Part of me just wanted to reach over and punch him and start up our whole _yellow car_ thing again but at the same time he was noticeably different than usual to the point where he felt worryingly stranger-like in some ways.

His voice was a sneer.

That at least was normal.

"I'm here to tell you to keep a leash on Dean. I'm up in the big leagues now hunting title shots. So if he gets in my way, then I'm gonna tear him down. Frankly I don't owe either one of you anything. You're lucky I dragged myself across town to give you this friendly courtesy call."

I blinked,

"So you – you didn't come to see how I was?"

Realistically I probably should have been shouting him down, or being all ballsy and asshole-ish back to him, except that I couldn't seem to make my fiery spunk work, which was probably some symptom of further concussion or else because deep down I still cared.

Seth's expression wavered,

"No."

But it was clear he was lying and honestly that sort of seemed to hurt even more, since why would being there to check up on me be a bad thing or something that he couldn't admit to himself? In fact that was probably the moment above any that solidified to me how ruined things were and although I knew I would always be fond of him some part of him was missing.

He wasn't _Seth_ anymore.

My head spun on me and I sat down heavily, sinking with a thump into a thankfully well placed chair. His feet stepped closer but then immediately moved back again and he blew a frustrated growl out.

"Always were a pain in the ass."

"What?"

He snapped,

"Dean lost his damn focus the second you strong-armed into his life. He didn't have that fire that we needed to be a unit. Instead he was always too concerned with where _you_ were."

"You mean it's my fault?"

Pure hurt rattled through me and filled my bones completely with a sudden sense of _shit_ because if he was telling me exactly what had happened then in essence I alone had broken up The Shield. Only I hadn't and both of us knew that completely because if that was the truth then why hit Roman as well, or talk to me proudly about hunting down titles?

I looked up forcefully,

"What did Hunter promise you? Must have been big to sell out your brothers."

Yep, there it was at last –

 _There_ was my spunk and presumably sensing that he had been rumbled, Seth gave up on the blame line and simply sneered again. A nurse pushing a trolley of drugs sauntered past us and looked up in bewilderment at the super villain laugh, but it didn't seem to faze the man doing the sniggering.

He didn't even see her.

"Your old man's taking me to the top."

"But you were there already," I stressed, feeling angry since it didn't strike me as an argument at all, "The three of you had beaten everybody on the roster, you were untouchable together, you – ,"

"We can't all be the champ."

I blinked.

Okay, so we finally had the truth of things and it was pretty much a tale that was clichéd and old as time because what it all seemed to boil down to in essence was the man's insatiable need for bright shiny things. For god sakes, what was the damn idiot anyway, an overgrown magpie?

My shoulders slumped,

"But after everything they did – ,"

I chose not to elaborate on my sentence any further and he in turn obliged by not asking me why or trying to make me expand on the matter, which he wouldn't have done anyway since he knew what I meant. There was no way he _couldn't_ have since he had been there for all of it, with front row seats to my messy life show. He had been there when the truck had almost crushed me, when I had been nabbed by Wyatt then freed myself again. He had been there with Dean riding to the rescue when Hunter had drugged me and had me locked up in that room and although he hadn't been present in the moment, he knew precisely what Randy had almost done too.

How could he bear being anywhere near them?

I looked up at him and he faltered just a tiny bit, like a fragment of his swagger was peeling away from him and in response to it he coughed and then swiftly looked away.

"It's business, alright? We're not braiding each other's hair here."

"But Randy tried to – he almost – you _know_ what he would have done."

I wheezed a little bit as I spluttered out the sentence, because the memory of that night would never not cause me alarm or make me flash back to the rolling waves of panic, not to mention the sheer volumes of helplessness as well.

Seth again dodged eye contact pussy style,

"Maybe you led him on."

I gaped at him,

" _What_?"

It was one of those sentences that – as soon as it was out there – didn't really seem like it could ever be undone and although I saw a wince flash over his features I was too fired up to take it on board or even vaguely start to feel mollified by it because how _dare_ he take that line?

"Get out."

"Lauren – ,"

" _Get out_."

I half yelled it, getting up with a very violent wobble to my feet. His hands flashed out in what must have been latent instinct, but as soon as they did they were back in again, probably because he thought I might try to kill him, which I would have failed at doing but nonetheless been good to try. Tears filled my eyes in a blend of emotions but mostly frustration at what had gone wrong. Not three months earlier I had been soaring like an eagle yet in the space of mere weeks I had been essentially gunned down.

Seth grumbled at me, like he was pissed I was creating,

"For christ sakes – ,"

"Do you want me to go wake Roman up? Because if you don't leave in the next seven seconds, I promise you Seth, that's what I'm going to do and trust me when I say that he's not as nice as I am. In fact, he's still pissed you drove a _chair_ into his back."

Seth blinked.

He seemed surprised that I was suddenly so ballsy and I guess on that front I couldn't blame him all that much. My emotions were pretty much everywhere and nowhere in a rollercoaster ride of feeling miserable then cross. He probably thought that I only cried when I was desolate but he was having a lesson in angry sobbing as well.

"Look, I didn't come here to make a scene or anything."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have come here at all."

I pulled up my gown hem and used a piece of the fabric to roughly scrub the wetness from my eyes, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of me crying and therefore showing him he'd won by breaking my heart.

He shrugged more idly than I knew he was feeling,

"I told you, I wanted to tell you to keep your crazy boyfriend well away."

I snorted a little at the choice of his wording and the fact he made it sound like a favor of some sort. Two warnings in one day had to be a new record although it only occurred to me in that precise moment what it was that Batista had been trying to say and also why Seth had shot in all guns blazing.

He hadn't been worried about my safety at all.

Instead he had been panicking that the outgoing wrestler had been about to rumble his devious little plan and therefore rob the fun of beating on his teammates in front of an arena full of horrified fans. Yet in spite of that I didn't believe for a second his line about having come down to warn Dean off because he could have done that through a text or a promo –

It boiled down to him wanting to see how I was.

Crap.

My poor head spun with total confusion because although I really hated him, he was still my guy as well. Part of him anyway, although it was somewhere deep in hiding while his asshole brain took over.

 _Maybe you led him on_.

I shook my head wearily,

"Dean will come for you anyway because you put me in the hospital, so it won't matter what I say."

"In that case you know I'm not gonna go easy."

"Neither will he, besides, you started the war."

It wasn't delivered with any conviction, since frankly my sapped reserves of effort had run dry and I blew out a sigh and then slumped against the cushions as we stood in a silence that clearly threw him off his game. He dickered about on the spot almost comically,

"Well, alright then."

Then he paused a little more, before actually growling like the whole thing was irking him before throwing his hands up and stalking towards the stairs. I watched him go with a burn in my cavity because in spite of what had happened I wanted him to stay and go back to being the bitchy older brother that had made me feel safe and happy.

I barked,

"Seth wait."

"What?"

He spun with one hand clamped around the handle and for a second it seemed like the old him was back again, because he didn't look angry just mildly sort of questioning and so I tried one last time to dig the better man out.

"We still all love you."

But the asshole merely grinned at me, then tipped his head back and cackled out a laugh, shaking his head like I was totally hilarious and he wasn't really sure what crazy joke I would spout next.

"That was always your problem."

He pulled the door open and then swanned right on through it without once looking back.

 _Wow_.

I stood and blinked into the space after him, not really sure how to feel anymore but aware that my thoughts were sort of churning inside me and wrapping around each other in a panicky, broiling twist. In many ways it was like being stood on a cliff edge in terms of the fight or flight sensations I felt and I frankly could have let myself drop at any moment –

Except the elevator pinged and a figure stepped out.

"Princess?"

I looked up and the conflict fell away from me at the sight of a pair of mottled blue eyes and a fluffy head of hair that shone up copper in the strip lights and sat above arms that always held me so well.

"Dean."

He moved towards me glancing around us and obviously trying to figure where Roman had gone and I reached out towards him with a sudden desperation and then curled around his bicep like I was trying to bury in.

He blinked at me,

"Hey, you alright?"

I nodded which was a half truth since he had only partly managed to ease the rub and although I should possibly have mentioned my visitor, the last thing I needed was him dashing away. I knew he would burst through the doors after the turncoat and more than likely beat him into a bloody little pulp but I also knew that I needed him by me.

I needed to touch him and smell him and feel his love.

"Uh – uh huh."

"You sure about that baby?"

In asking the question his hand ghosted through my hair and I leaned into his fingers like I had been months without them or potentially thought I wouldn't feel their warmth again. It didn't really help my whole _I'm fine_ deal and realizing it abruptly I straightened up and cleared my throat, looking up into his loving eyes brightly and then gesturing to my right,

"I – um – wanted a candy bar."

He glanced towards the vending machine beside us and then turned back with a frown,

"You got money in that thing?"

Evidently he was talking about my sexy kimono which had tassels galore but no pockets that I could feel and definitely nothing in the way of cold hard currency, which was where my genius deception fell away.

"Oh, well, no."

He blinked at me a little but then snorted in vague fondness and pecked me on the head, clearly having decided that I had overlooked the payment as a result of my ongoing concussion injury. Digging a hand into the pocket of his denims, he drew out some change and gently spun me round, keeping his lips pressed up right against my hairline like he couldn't be apart from me and which I totally didn't mind.

"So, what does my Princess have a taste for this mornin'?"

"Apart from you? A mars bar please."

He snorted again then grumbled a little and reached down the kimono to lightly squeeze my butt. It was naughty but real and it grounded me to something that was familiar and loving and had never wavered once. In the moment I felt calm and let myself sink further into him, holding his forearm tight underneath my palms and feeling his heartbeat pounding steadily through his arteries.

I blew out a breath.

Maybe life would go on.

* * *

 **So, how are we feeling about Seth here? Is he good, is he bad, is he horribly confused and caught in the middle? I'm trying to plant him somewhere right in the middle because the poor guy has to be pretty confused, right?**

 **Let me know what you're thinking!**


	7. You Keep Me Hangin' On

**Okay, so after Seth being a total asshole in the last chapter, who is up for some Dean cuteness (with added child interaction) to cheer us all up? Hope you're all enjoying the rumble (also kinda hope you drop everything to read this...a girl can dream right?!)**

 **Sodapop25, Wow because Seth was so outta line in that last one? Totally agree. But heel Seth is too fantastic and evil to hate too much! Is it wrong I kinda like him? Yes...yes it is!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Lauren should absolutely have slapped him, but I think she was too shocked to move and the concussion probably had something to do with it, but you're right, that boy needed himself a full faced hit for that! I'm not Seth really believes what's he's saying but he's trying to play the bad guy, so I'll cut him some slack.**

 **Skovko, Actually, I have to say that I'm not too fussy so regardless of whether it's a Snickers or a Mars bar I will happily accept all comers to my table. I am very equal opportunities with my sweet treats...except raisins, those wrinkled little buggers can go to hell! Uh, but back to the story. Yep, Seth can pretend but deep inside he still cares as time (a lot of it) will come to tell.**

 **Labinnacslove, Hey, I know you're at the start, but when you get to this chapter hopefully this response will be a nice surprise! Welcome back girl, so happy you're here for this one because, well, as you have guessed, things change in their world here. Hope you enjoyed reading the heel turn and I hope you enjoy the fallout that's still to come!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Thank you! I certainly try to keep you guys all entertained. Plus my Dean and Lauren stories will always secretly be my favourites, so I'm super grateful to you for reviewing and I'm glad you love my crazy couple too.**

 **Mandy, Sorry, I didn't mean to make you freak. BUT A) It had to be done and B) You're right, Seth secretly does care, like when he moved to steady her when she went woozy. My take on it is that Seth is simply trying to be a massive asshole to convince them and himself that he hates them. Nice try! In the story that follows this one (my new favourite, I'm super proud of it) we see more flashes of his buried caring feelings creeping back through, not too many but they're important.**

 **Minnie1015, Haha, Yeah, I know it's you but I'm still waiting for the super awkward time that you forget to review and I call out some random person instead, it's bound to happen at some point! Yep, Seth went super low there, but he's trying to push them all away so he's being the biggest weaselly asshole he can be. He knocked it out of the park with that one though! Mean Seth.**

 **MizHyde, Oh my goodness, hi! I was thinking about you just the other day (in a not weird way) so glad you're back and I'm also glad you're liking this installment. Agree about Seth doing what he thinks is best, I'm hoping he comes across as a confused asshole...it's a difficult balance to pull off to say the least! Yeah, Steph and Hunter won't be visiting him hospital with a bunch of grapes!**

 **HannonsPen, Yikes, sorry to hear about all your paperwork. Forms and meetings are never any fun. Why does everything have to be so difficult? But I'm glad you're still enjoying this little bit of crazy I'm writing here and I'm also glad that I'm keeping you on your toes. Can't have you resting on your fan fiction laurels now!**

 **Raze Olympus, Evil Seth does have a certain something about him doesn't he? He was just such a little weasel always hiding behind JJ. He played the bad guy so well. But I always felt like him being mean to Dean was because he was trying to prove that he really hated him when really he was trying to convince himself. I see your games Seth!**

 **Dean cuteness and children coming right up...**

* * *

 **You Keep Me Hangin' On**

I managed to get discharged just a few hours later, at which point my clothes were happily returned. I hadn't much fancied flying home in the kimono and definitely not without my warm trusty boots. Before we headed off I was handed a leaflet, with basic care notes on how to treat a banged up head, but Dean threw it into the trash as we were leaving, which I let him do figuring that he likely had the upper hand.

"You just need sleep and to take it fuckin' easy."

Yep.

 _Florence Deaningale_ was back in full force again and that extended right through to getting me in the rental and then tucked beneath his arm, still not quite ready to let me go. Roman took the wheel, having roused from his slumber and drove us to the airport like the good chauffeur he was, before hanging for an hour and grabbing a bite to eat with us, which was nice but also not –

We all knew we were missing one.

Evidently worrying about his accident prone girlfriend had given Dean an appetite to rival a bear, so his order consisted of a double steak burger with trimmings and a basket of golden onion rings on the side. Roman too tucked in pretty readily but for once I chose not to join in the fun, since another lovely symptom of being half battered was an apparent loss of appetite.

I simply picked at Dean's fries.

We chatted sort of randomly and idly about topics, with the guys clearly trying their best to keep things light and which therefore meant mostly hearing about Roman's children or checking up on how things were with his mom and dad. At one point I started to feel really sleepy and so basically pooled right down over Dean's lap, which probably looked pretty weird to those seated around us but that I was far too weary to much care about. I drifted in and out, picking up half of the conversation and tiny little scraps of information here and there –

"You know I'm gonna have to go after him don't you?"

"Figured you would uce."

"You gonna stop me?"

"Hell no, his ass made his bed and now he's gotta lie in it."

Even sleep fogged I knew who they were talking about.

In the end I woke up as the bill was being paid for, at which point I lifted my head from Dean's legs, then set about rubbing my brown eyes tiredly because the damn things were all itchy and actually felt _worse_. Dean kissed my temple,

"We gotta flight to catch Princess."

He helped me stand unsteadily and then walked me to the door, at which point we had to make our farewells to Roman which felt so weirdly final that I wanted to cry. He must have seen it too since he tucked my chin gently and then blessed me with a grin,

"I'll be seeing you soon and I'm 'a be seein' _his_ ass for the house shows."

To make his point he thumbed roughly at Dean, who smirked right on back with the same ease he had always done in regards to his brothers.

Well, brother _singular_ now I guessed.

I blinked,

"So, we'll still be traveling together?"

"Damn straight baby girl, that ain't gonna change, you said it yourself, we're a family remember?"

His words soothed the ache in my heart.

 _Yes we were_.

Even so hugging him goodbye was a weird thing, since usually we just tended to give each other a little wave, given that our times spent apart were so infrequent that getting over emotional had never really seemed to fit. There and then however we embraced each other fiercely and Roman almost managed to squash my ribcage whole. His hair and his arms and his scent were reassuring and I breathed them in deeply and grinned,

"Take it easy big guy."

Putting out his hand, Dean went for a fist bump which was pretty much in line with what they usually did, but the bigger man instead dragged him in for a bear hug that I could tell from simply looking was even tighter than mine had been. He finished it off with a rub across Dean's head curls that made my boyfriend look adorably unkempt and I grinned at the unexpected show of affection and at the lopsided grin it had drawn on each face.

"Family babe."

It was Roman's final parting before he hopped back up into the lofty driver's side and then pulled the rental round out of the car park and back onto the long stretch of asphalt again.

For a long time after he had slid into the distance, Dean remained sort of tellingly quiet and I let him fall into it as we headed for the departure lounge, because a whole lot had happened and he needed to think it out. Besides which I was still far too tired and spacey to probably have thought of the right thing to say, which was based on the assumption that the _right thing_ was out there, although what in the world would have made it okay? Certainly not sorry or other empty platitudes and it wasn't a bereavement although it also sort of _was_. Seth as we knew him had fallen off a building and the bits that were left over were unpleasant to say the least. It was a brave new world we were having to battle into but if it all burnt down tomorrow we would be together all the same and knowing it I took up Dean's hand in my fingers, as we settled into seats to wait for our flight.

He looked down at me worriedly,

"How you feelin' Princess?"

"Okay, not great but not horrible anymore."

I swivelled my legs round onto the empty chair beside me until I was lying tucked up but stretched out across them both, before huddling myself in close against his ribcage with my head on his breastbone and his arms around my frame. He dropped his head down onto my crown again gently and took a long breath in up through my hair, then he squeezed me a little,

"That's it now Princess, none of that savin' my ass shit again."

"Huh?"

"I can't fuckin' take it sittin' by your bedside and waitin' for you to wake up an' be alright."

My fingers grazed along his arm hairs gently and traced soothing patterns in over the skin, which was a trick I had learnt across the months that largely soothed him although possibly for the last scare it would take a little more.

"I'm okay."

"But you nearly fuckin' _weren't_ though," he blew out a breath, "When I saw you on the ground – ,"

"Hey."

I interrupted by cupping at his cheekbones and then grazing the stubble like I could rub away the pain. I had no doubt it had been terrifying for him and I only felt sorry that I had played a major part. But I wasn't a bit sorry for having defended him and in the scheme of things I was glad that out of the two of us, _I_ was the one hurt.

Love, am I right?

Moving his head he kissed my palm briefly and then turned back so I could keep scratching his skin, like a dog trying to get at an itch on its hiney and then letting out a low contented sounding moan.

"I mean it Princess, I'm gonna kill him for you."

"I don't need you to."

"Fuckin' _have_ to do it."

"I know."

Drawing my hand down I tucked it into towards me as the blood flow began to rapidly pool at the joint and made my fingers go all tingly until I couldn't even feel his coarse little hairs. Snuggling into his sweater a little deeper, I inhaled his musky aftershave and then blew out a sigh, once again feeling crazily sleepy which I guessed was the concussion.

It was totally _not_ fun.

"Mmm, I can't wait to get home to our own bed, I think I'll sleep for about a thousand years."

"Not surprised seein' how long you were out for."

His voice was all grumbly as he relived it again and the fact that we were suddenly both back in that moment returned me to my earlier encounter with Seth, not to mention his pretty harsh accusation. Had he even really been there or was it just some weird dream? Either way I frowned a little in hesitance and then started to toy with the cord of Dean's hood, winding it over and over around my pinky in an absent sort of movement as I croakily cleared my throat,

"Um – ,"

"I fuckin' knew it, somethin' is eatin' you."

"I just – I was wondering if it was maybe my fault?"

I winced as I said it because I felt sort of stupid and a tiny little part of me was nervous of the response. Not that Dean would have ever truly blamed me, in fact it would likely be the opposite of that, but I knew that if he even faintly thought it for a _second_ then I would hear it in his voice and then know either way. After all Seth's claim hard hardly come from nowhere and so maybe it was something I had never really seen? Me as some sort of unwelcome addition to their otherwise pumping and fist-swinging tactical team.

Luckily however, Dean merely blinked down at me, totally bewildered,

"The hell would you think that?"

I shrugged,

"Maybe I somehow messed up your dynamic or got in the way or threw you off your game?"

"Princess – ,"

"I mean, I _do_ seem to find trouble almost everywhere I go and I know you worry about me a lot."

My sentence tailed off as he shuffled a little and then swept down his hands to encircle my face, tilting my head gently until he could see me and the proximity as ever took my breath clean away. How I had ended up with someone so gorgeous and so on my wavelength was a mystery to me, but I truly was grateful almost every second for it and especially when I was rambling.

"Lauren hey, _stop_ , I don't know where the fuck you got that idea from but it's crazy, okay?"

"Are you sure?"

He frowned,

"Damn sure, in fact if anythin' I'm _better_ at that shit now an' it's all because of you."

"It – it is?"

Blue eyes sparkled at me and my probable expression which I could feel was a mixture between baffled and alarmed. I was still sort of prepared for my role in their downfall to be gently but nonetheless readily confirmed and so the fact that he was saying I somehow _enhanced_ him was so totally surprising that it made my head pound.

Or maybe that was the lingering concussion.

Two weeks of it, huh?

 _Good times here I come_.

He rolled his eyes at me like I was being kind of silly but the expression was a fond one like he was teasing a little kid and given that the chair shot had probably knocked some brain cells into a gloopy sort of pulp then maybe that was the truth.

"Princess, you gimme somethin' to fight for, I couldn't have done any of this shit without you. Before I hit people because – y' know – I'm a lunatic, but for the first time ever I got an actual fuckin' _cause_. Don't sell that short, alright? Not ever. It's a hell of a motivator, m' tellin' you that."

"Wow."

Relief flooded hot and fast through my system as I gazed up into his passionate face. His jaw was set and he had at some point looked away from me to fix his fierce gaze on a spot beyond my head. Clearly his brain was sort of spinning with emotions of which anger seemed to be a pretty prominent one, but even in the midst of his brotherhood unravelling, he still knew exactly the right words to put across.

Not bad for a brawler that most people thought was crazy.

He blinked down at me looking dazed,

"Wow what?"

"You realize that you're amazing don't you?"

"Yep."

Dean slapped my thigh in a loving little pat and then shuffled further back into the lounge seat, bringing me in closer and almost flat across his chest. In return I rubbed my cheek against his hoodie front, smoothing out the wrinkle and sort of making a tiny nest. Once I was comfortable I leant my weight against it and then blew another sigh out.

We could have been anywhere.

But unluckily for us we were actually in an airport and in full view of the thirty or so other people hanging there. For the most part wrestlers weren't massively famous, or at least not on the scale of being stopped in the store and so largely back home our lives were pretty normal and the few fans that did appear were both sweet and fairly sparse. Airports however were a whole other matter because a lot of the passengers had often been at the shows and were catching the same flights home as their heroes, which was sometimes a bind.

Not always though –

"Mister Ambrose?"

His head popped up quickly as a tiny little timbre stumbled off to our right hand side and we both looked across in a startled sort of tandem at the squeaky voiced speaker who was perhaps eight years old. He was hovering nervously about three foot away from us and digging his heels into the shiny airport floor, like the cutiepie was either attempting to ground himself or else possibly driving some of his pulsing nervousness out. He was holding a small scrappy notebook in his free hand, with the other taken up by an already clicked out pen and it was clear in an instant what he wanted to happen but was too timid to ask for.

Dean straightened,

"Hey man."

In response to him the boy lit up like a firework and frankly I got what he was feeling at once, since Dean still had that effect on me daily and I had been living with him for the last ten months. Making him beam and genuinely mean it felt like the most important thing in the world and for that to have happened to the tiny kid in front of us was beautiful to watch.

"Can – can I have your autograph?"

His hands shot up like he was working on wires but he also stumbled forward a few steps more and I lifted to let my boyfriend lean in close to him and take the pen and paper,

"What's your name dude?"

"Mason."

Honestly the little man was totally adorable and it made me have to fight down a physical _squeak_ because seeing my boyfriend interacting with children reminded me of where I hoped our future might one day lead. We had certainly talked in passing about our own kids and Dean had essentially made it clear he assumed we would. Watching him awe his smallest fanbase however got me hyped for that moment.

It was just something I had to have.

Dean signed his name with an exaggerated flourish and then penned a tiny line or two after that before handing the paper back towards the bouncing youngster whereupon it was hastily accepted and then read. From where I was sat I couldn't see what he'd written but based on the expression it produced it was good and the kid beamed back with a sudden burst of confidence like the two of them were buddies,

"You're my favorite wrestler, I – I don't like Seth Rollins."

Dean snorted wryly,

"Tell me 'bout it champ."

Brown little eyes then swung in my direction and the boy blushed mildly and then looked down again. He was grinning so his next sentence ended up sort of giggled but it was totally cute and so I honestly didn't mind.

"My dad says he thinks you're really pretty."

A voice hissed out from across the departure chairs,

" _Mason_."

It belonged to a man who was staring back wildly, like a teen in the corner of the room at homecoming who had just been rumbled to his crush by a friend and was caught in between trying to play it off cheerily or else let the floor clean swallow him up. On seeing us both staring over at him, brows raised, he waved an awkward hand and then coughed a little,

"Uh, _hey_."

Mason pointed,

"That's my daddy."

"Then tell your old man he has real good taste."

Dean spoke coolly but it made me grin anyway and that expression doubled as his fingers lightly brushed my skin and then lingered softly on the curve of my collarbone in a possessive little move that was also proud as well.

Mason nodded but clearly didn't get it,

"We were at the show last night, are you feeling okay now?"

He was talking to me again only suddenly his eyes were narrowed and not in excitement at having met his idol either but instead in sweetly childish lashings of concern. I smiled back warmly and leant in towards him.

"Aw, I'm fine thank you sweetheart, I'm just a bit sore."

"You gonna get him back?"

He was staring at Dean once again and with a fierce little scowl that was actually pretty warming, since it had purely been conjured as a result of my hurt and was therefore defensive like a proper little mini man. Evidently my having been battered into darkness hadn't sat well with the majority of the fans and I liked the fact that it was breaking down barriers whereby they could actually come up and talk to me more. Instead of whooping and hollering and cat-calling.

I winked at the kid.

He was a cutie alright.

Dean also nodded back at him curtly, firm-faced and solemn but I could feel his fingers clench over my skin, tightening on instinct at the rolling bank of memories, although the youngster in front of us stopped him from snarling or worse.

"You bet I am."

"Good."

The tiny tot seemed utterly resolute, like my boyfriend's confirmation had quelled his brief doubt, although his next question was swiftly interrupted by his father, who hissed across the distance,

" _Mason_ , come on now, that's enough."

His shoulders slumped in the full upset-kid deal, like he'd been called in for dinner and away from his friends. He turned around quickly as if to protest it, but his father's raised brow swiftly killed his pitch dead, to which he huffed out a breath of long suffering and then turned back towards us with a chirpy wave,

"Bye."

He left in an actual skip of elation then careered around the chair to launch into an outstretched hug and on seeing his kid happy, my shy admirer nodded over and then mouthed out two words that made it all seem worthwhile.

 _Thank you_.

Dean raised a hand like it wasn't a problem, but I knew him well enough to know that he was happy too. He had never turned down a child fan, not ever and it was just another part of what made him so unique. A big, tough, burly and ferocious exterior hiding something tender and squidgy underneath.

 _Awww_.

Blowing out a sigh that turned into a humming noise, I settled back against him and let my eyes shut, trying to stave off the unrelenting bass noise that was pounding rhythmically right into my skull. Despite the events of the previous few hours, I had a very sleepy but sort of light feeling again and it made me chuckle into the folds of his sweater as I tried to keep comfy,

"Do you ever think about names?"

"Names for what?"

"For our future children."

Dean snorted roughly then waved an airy hand,

"Sure, I figure we would do that deal of namin' 'em after the place we _did the deed_ , y' know? Like Big-Ass-Dumpster-Outside-The-Arena or maybe Backstage-In-The-Showers, that kinda thing."

"Haha."

"Who's jokin'?"

I slapped him very lightly then found a nuzzling spot that was comfortable as hell and as it turned out, was placed between his pec muscles which created a natural gully that nicely cradled my throbbing head.

"That's it, I'm taking children off the table until you can be more mature about them."

It was meant as a joke and I even sort of snorted, but in response Dean simply grew serious again, tugging his fingers through my brown locks lightly and then kissing my crown in an elongated smack.

"M' just fuckin' glad we _can_ talk about this shit, could've turned out a whole different way."

"I'm okay."

"You've got a fuckin' concussion."

"But other than that I'm fighting fit, right?"

He snorted again and then placed another kiss down but thankfully it seemed to settle him more and so I made a mental note that gentle reassurance would possibly be my line for the next week or more. Not that giving my man some reassurance was a bad situation to have to be in. Frankly if it meant being tucked up together then I was happy to do it for a long as he might need. I loved him after all and making him happy was my job now and –

 _Ugh_.

Sometimes the sickly romance bit was too sweet for even _me_ and in the moment I totally got why Seth had always grumbled whenever Dean and I were doing coupley stuff. Maybe that was the potential reason he had decided to go rogue on us, although less and less did I felt his turn was my fault and looking up mildly I furrowed my brow a bit and asked the burning question,

"Why did he do it to us?"

Dean hauled a breath in,

"Fame and fuckin' glory, he wants a god damn shiny belt around his waist."

"Oh."

So pretty much precisely what I had slowly come to realize and which further meant the fallout was categorically _not_ my fault and was instead all down to their youngest man's ego and need to clamber the towering ladder of success. Still, wasn't there that saying about trampling up too hard, for fear of meeting those who you had stomped on coming back down?

Dean growled darkly, still on the belt thing,

"Not that it'll happen 'cos I won't let him win, I'm gonna hound his slimy ass every damn footstep an' be the happy face he sees when he draws his last breath, I mean it baby, that weasel is gonna suffer. I'm gonna make him pay us back in his own fuckin' blood."

* * *

 **I would just like to say for no specific reason that** _ **Florence Deaningale**_ **is possibly the best two words I've ever written, it make me laugh a whole lot more than it should have done and I'm not entirely proud of that!**


	8. Night Moves

**After all of the stress and the worry, I thought I might give Dean and Lauren something a little bit special in this next one, well, more Lauren than Dean but you know what they say about happy wife (or in this case girlfriend) happy life right?!**

 **Sodapop25, Glad you liked it, last chapter was, this chapter is steamy so I'm certainly trying to cater for all tastes here!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, I've been thinking about children and whether or not I want them to end up at that point, not sure how or if it would alter their dynamic but I kinda figure that eventually it might be fun to try and write...watch this space!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Super thrilled you liked the last one and fingers crossed for this one too. I know it might be a bit premature, but I've just finished their next story where Hunter's plans (or more likely Stephanie's) go totally crazy, so hopefully you'll tune into that one too when I get it up!**

 **Mandy, Well, because Seth isn't such a huge player in these stories, I figure that I have to give him to you in the Police AU stories at least! Lol! Glad you liked Dean and Mason. Who doesn't love a big burly guy that is super cute around kids?**

 **Minnie1015, No PPV watching but I'm glad working hours don't interfere with you reading and reviewing my stories at least! Priorities and all! Yeah, can you tell I have a bit of a weakness for writing about Dean/Mox with kids? Not ashamed. The visual is just too freaking perfect!**

 **Moxley Gal1, We get to hear from Hunter's a little bit later in the story so I hope you'll like that part. As for Seth, my own take is that during that period he was trying to make it seem like he hated the guys because he was mostly trying to convince himself. We know it's not true though!**

 **Labinnacslove, Yay! I can see you're playing catch up with these chapters! Glad you're liking it though. Sexy time was one of my favorites and yep, it was pretty much all downhill for them from there! Good news too, the relationship develops in this and the next one but I won't say how!**

 **MizHyde, Dean and kids, am I right? Yep, Seth is going to realize that he misses his family. He's basically trying to convince himself that he doesn't need them, but we all know that's bull. It might take him until 2017 (or maybe not in my stories, who knows?!) but he'll come right eventually!**

 **Skovko, Well, there certainly is drama ahead between Lauren and Dean, but it's not actually about what you think it's going to be about (wait, did that make sense?!) Either way, I'm going to do my usual mean thing and not tell you. I'm going to leave you hanging until we get there, mwahaha!**

 **AngelsDestiny22, Awww, thank you! Glad you like them so much. I absolutely adore writing chapters where the two of them are together just being cute and loving. This next chapter is like that too, but with a bit of added heat. I hope you like it!**

 **TheSilverWolff, Not to worry, you're here now and right in time for the party too! I'm sorry Seth broke your heart but...hey, blame him! Good news, lots more Roman/Lauren bonding to come and even more in the next story as well! Sooo happy you love Dean and Lauren. They're my faves too!**

 **Dean's submission for boyfriend of the year coming right up...**

* * *

 **Night Moves**

Being back at home was the tonic we both needed and that became fast apparent as we walked through the door. Inside was our stuff, our smell and our memories, not forgetting our excitable rescue pooch as well. In fact Boomer was so damn happy to see us that I totally forgot about the thumping in my head _and_ about the asshole backstabber who had caused it because I all I could focus on was the fluffy black hair and the slobbering tongue trying to creep across my features with such determination that I couldn't help but laugh.

"Boom-Boom _stop_ , you great big idiot."

Life it seemed, was still ticking away and although I had lost plenty in the general scheme of things, the people that mattered were still right there with me and I also had a home and a pet and a network.

It was okay.

They were everything I would ever really need.

Having waved goodbye to our elderly house sitter, who had thankfully never watched wrestling in her life, I hauled myself up the stairs to our bedroom then collapsed face down with a moan onto the sheets.

"Ugh."

It had been a pretty hectic twenty four hours and I was ready to head back into the soothing world of sleep. In fact I could barely even take off my jacket I was so completely worn out by the whole thing and noticing it Dean walked in with a chuckle and leant against the doorframe with a wry brow raised up,

"Gotta say, I prefer when you sleep naked."

I waved a hand at him groggily,

"Too tired."

"Princess – ,"

I twisted my face into the comforter and whined at him a little like a petulant child,

" _No_ , don't make me move."

He stepped across anyway with a fond sort of snort sound and then very gently nudged me until I tipped over onto my back. His face was hanging just inches above me and his blue eyes were twinkling in the dimmed orange light. I reached up a hand and traced a finger across his jawline and he responded by teasingly snapping his teeth, making me squeak as he dragged down my zipper and pulled my arms gently out of the sleeves.

"Not gonna let you sleep like this baby, looks like a hobo crawled into our bed."

I frowned at him,

" _Hey_ – ,"

"But a really fuckin' cute one."

He took the opportunity to gently kiss my head and I reached up on instinct and hooked his chin nearer which he responded to at once by fusing our lips. It wasn't a passionate or hungry sort of meeting, but instead something sweeter and infused with deep love.

" _Mmmm_ – ,"

I couldn't help the way it made me feel though and he moved his head back with a tiny little smirk. He had heard that sound before a whole _bunch_ of times and he knew what it meant.

"You've got concussion."

"I don't care."

Nor was I lying since it didn't seem important and nor had the doctors mentioned _not_ making love. In my mind therefore it meant that sex was a good thing and more than likely fundamental to my recovery process.

Right?

Dean snorted at me then wriggled down to pull my boots off which thudded to the floor swiftly followed by my socks, then his fingers were at the buttons of my jean fronts and I grinned at him in pleasure,

"Yay, sexy time."

"Nope."

I blinked in return because my spirits had been soaring and the prospect of _deed doing_ had made me bloom hot and had _also_ started up that excited little tingling beneath the deep blue denim where his broad hands were. Being told therefore that it wasn't going to happen was a hit to the system to say the very least and I straight up pouted and stuck my bottom lip out as I argued his decision,

"But – but why not?"

"Princess," Dean huffed out, sounding impatient as he continued to inch my skinny pants down, "You're meant to be restin' and takin' it easy, not bouncin' round screamin' and all sweaty on me."

I shivered.

I couldn't help it because the image was a _hot_ one but he rolled his eyes in reply to the move and I let out an unapologetic little giggle beside a word that I _definitely_ didn't remotely mean.

"Sorry."

He raised a brow at me,

"You're really fired up huh?"

I nodded then pulled him in closer again, gently snaking my fingers in his hair nest and then teasing him further up my body to my face. He went with it willingly in a sexy sort of slither that dragged his tight chest muscles over my own and made me suck in a breath of true longing as his blue eyes drew level and then hovered,

"Dean – ,"

"Is this what you want?"

I bit my lip and nodded almost mutely while at the same time winding my arms around his neck and thumbing gently across the skin beneath his hairline where it was just starting to sprout back from the barber's neat buzz.

"I need it, I need to feel like things are normal."

But even to my ears it was a pretty kooky line because while I was lying on the bed with my boyfriend with our crazy ass dog stretched out in the hall, I was _also_ still notably reeling from a head knock that had been delivered full force by the back of a steel chair. _Normal_ didn't really come into the equation and yet suddenly in the moment it was what I had to have, besides which I figured heavy petting in the boudoir was as good a cure as any for a mushy-feeling head.

"Princess?"

"Huh?"

Dean's thumb stroked my cheekbone,

"You kinda zoned out on me there for a little bit."

"Oh, sorry."

He gazed down at me deeply but he was also sort of _looking_ and searching out my face, hunting for the answer to something he hadn't asked yet and in return I stayed quiet and simply blinked back up at him, willing to give whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.

He let out a grunt,

" _Fine_ but you ain't movin' an inch, y' hear me?"

"Um, okay?"

I didn't know what that meant and so therefore responded to his next kiss too slowly because his lips were gone again in an all too brief flash which made me huff out a breath of disgruntlement until I felt his fingers start to lift my shirt up.

 _Oh_.

His warm calloused palms drew up my flank achingly as he slid up the material of my blouse to my bra, then ducked his head to press light pecks down my sternum which turned into nips on every third one.

 _Oh, oh, oh_.

My stomach shrank quickly inwards and allowed me instead to arch my back up, pressing my skin in closer to where his face was and demanding his hot wet lips across my ribs.

" _Mmm_ , more, lower – ,"

"Easy baby, m' gettin' there, I know what my girl likes, you trust me?"

"Uh huh."

Dean grinned wolfishly which I couldn't see _exactly_ since my head was thrown back against the pillows in hopeful bliss, but I could feel it stretched out across my stomach muscles anyway and knew instantly what it was.

He was enjoying himself as well.

His kisses sank lower and deeper across my navel and then right on down to the band of my briefs, lying exposed where he had peeled back the buttons on the jeans that had been shucked to a point halfway down my hips. Reaching up again, he peeled them off further and I obliged as best I could by lifting myself up and bridging pretty much right into his jawline which made him snort a little as he pooled the denim folds down,

"Princess, we're gonna have to revisit this beggin' shit when that beautiful head ain't all jacked up."

"Okay – ,"

I breathed it out but then stuttered to a stop again as he slid my pants right the way off my legs and then slowly began to trace his smooches upwards and focusing with great interest on the tender inner thigh skin. His hands skimmed them too creating a joint sensation that made my toes curl in the thought of what was to come.

 _Wow_.

I reached down and tangled his hair up in my fingers and although my fluttering heart rate shot more blood into my headache, the gentle and totally arousing sensations easily outstripped the sheer discomfort I felt.

"Now, what to do about these tiny little panties?"

Dean's head popped up and he tapped at his chin and it made me giggle as I stared across my breasts at him because I loved how our sexy times could also be _fun_ and easy and altogether so utterly magical that I was mad I had wasted sex on anyone else.

I tugged his hair and writhed lightly underneath him as I stuttered out my answer,

"Take them off, please take them off."

My boyfriend merely grinned,

"Not just yet Princess."

Then he dropped his lips to the point where it mattered and clamped them around my delicate spot, latching himself to the front of my underwear and then blowing a hot and quite deliberate breath through. My hips twitched in response and I moaned because, put simply, the feeling was new and totally divine and the mixture of wet air and searing heat tickled me which rapidly intensified the tingles again.

"Dean – ,"

Having my hands on his head meant I could hold him, which I did very suddenly with both my palms to his cheeks, making his mouth stay exactly where I wanted it as I rocked my groin up into his lips, rubbing myself almost frantically against them to show him how and where I needed his love. Or, at least it _would_ have been in the realms of frantic had I not still been carrying the knocked and fuzzy head, which therefore made the whole thing kind of majorly _clumsy_ but also just a little bit needier as well. Dean responded by flicking his tongue out and pressing the tip to the material like a dart and its heat seared in through the cotton almost instantly and made my breathing hitch before turning into a happy moan.

"Still my dirty girl even banged up, huh?"

I nodded,

"Uh huh."

It was a breathy little sound, which then promptly gave way to a hiss of approval and his tongue flattened over the area as a whole, soaking through the fabric of my white panties and covering my tingling nerve endings in warmth. My toes curled up and I tightened my grip on him, carding my fingers too roughly through his hair.

Possibly however, not quite rough _enough_.

"Pull harder baby, show me you fuckin' want it."

"Oh god – ,"

His tongue slapped closer again and then began to work up and down repeatedly in tiny but very firm and deliberate little licks, that teased their way over my sweet spot then kept on going before provocatively sweeping over again and making me physically jolt up against him because the feelings were broiling and starting to grow.

"Gonna make my baby feel better – ,"

Dean was mostly mumbling to himself but the low tones buzzed sort of hummed right through me as he kept his lips clamped in too close and it made things worse, or else far _better_ which he had to have known since he was grinning as well.

" _Please_."

I wasn't entirely sure what I was asking for, but he responded by wickedly removing his mouth and I let out a huffy little whimper in protest, which made him chuckle as he moved back to my chest, peppering more light kisses up my ribcage in the opposite direction to where he had been and his blue eyes glinting like an insolent child as he mumbled between pecks,

"Easy, show's not over yet."

By the time he reached my face I was having a hot flush, with a wave of sultry pleasure prickling over my skin and his beautiful features hung right up above me with a rosy cheeked grin only added to the bliss. Dropping his lips down he caught mine without warning and claimed them right in the middle of a breath, his tongue darting in like it was looking for something and the fierce need and passion in it making my head spin.

 _Whoa_.

Before I had even managed to fill my lungs again, his fingers dropped down to rub across my mound, tracing them over the wet cotton fabric and then focusing in on where I desired them the most.

"Oh god, I need – I need – ,"

Dean kissed me,

"Tell me Princess, what do you need?"

" _You_."

He chuckled at that and it brought out the dimples, which as usual were just too god damn _cute_ to be real but which then disappeared as he ducked to nip my neckline, still continuing to trace the loving circles through my briefs.

" _Mmmm_."

My hips responded to his hand motions readily until the two of them were practically moving as one, like some sort of professional synchronized dance act instead of two people _sort of_ getting it on. Evidently my response signalled some kind of watershed and he resumed his earlier rubbing again, keeping the contact light but rapid and focusing on the spot he knew would bring the results in. Helpfully in return I bucked up against him and gripped his shoulders so hard that my fingernails burrowed in, because in a really weird way I felt like I was falling off a mountain and then on through a hot and blissful sky,

"Dean – ,"

"M' right here Princess. You gettin' there baby? You gonna show me how good it feels huh?"

I buried my head against his shoulder blade _hard_ , pressing my battered crown right into the bone there and using it to ground myself as the tingling rose up, spreading the length of my trembling body and then growing and growing until it reached the tipping point.

"I – ,"

It was the only coherent syllable I could vocalize for the next several seconds as I crashed over the brink and instead I threw back my head and yelped in raw pleasure as his teeth clipped my bare and fully exposed throat. Boomer woke up with a jolt out in the hallway and padded in to see what his folks were up to, then sat sort of staring like he didn't really get it as I melted into a limp but blissful lump in Dean's arms.

He kissed my forehead,

"How're you feelin'?"

" _Mmmm_."

I was still too sex buzzed to really think and inching down from the super sweet high so slowly that I honestly felt like I was moving through a dream, albeit a really good one where my gorgeous man was cuddling me and the two of were safely tucked up in our house. I unfolded my fingers from his shoulders blade haltingly and then collapsed back onto the sheets with a sigh.

Dean brushed my hair back,

"Lauren, how's the headache?"

My answer sounded wasted and I giggled a little too because frankly the sensations were similar to being drunken since I was happy and spacey and feeling warm the whole way through,

"It's still there."

Dean untangled himself gently and then clambered off the bed which I replied to with a moan and a frown of discontent since I wanted him near me and not just then either, but quite literally _all_ the time. He snorted in relative amusement at my grumblings then cut across the floorboards with a head ruffle for the dog, before letting himself with a creak into our bathroom and then for some unknown reason flipping on the tap.

 _Huh_?

Figuring that whatever the hell we had been up to was finally over, Boomer jumped onto the bed, then promptly made himself comfy on the covers and using his master's pillow as a rest for his head. It made me grin and I reached out to scratch him, which he greeted with a tail wag and then a happy little lick and I shut my eyes and continued to tousle through his comforting black fur as I was lured back by sleep.

"Princess?"

"Wha – ,"

Dean was hovering above me and as I jolted back to consciousness, he draped a washcloth on my head, positioning it right in over my forehead where the thumping was the worst and drilling pain behind my eye. How he knew was a mystery to me but I blew out a breath of gratitude all the same, then reached out and caught up his big warm fingers in an attempt to drag him closer,

"Your turn now."

I was fumbling at his waistband before I even realized and despite the fact that I was still muddle headed and lazily post-love flushed, I managed to grab hold and had already unpopped the button of his zipper before his hands put a stop on things,

"Easy baby, not tonight."

"But don't you want some _special attention_?"

"Not from my banged up an' exhausted girl, no."

I blinked,

"You mean – you mean you want it from someone _else_ then?"

In my weird cloudy haze I thought that was what he meant and although that should have filled my head with horror, the consequence of the statement really didn't sink in and so instead I merely screwed my face up in bewilderment and gazed into his eyes.

He snorted at me,

"The hell I do. How many times do I gotta tell ya Princess? S' you an' me now, isn't anybody else."

"Oh, well that's good."

My eyes flickered sluggishly as the coolness of the washcloth began to very slowly soothe the pounding in my head, biting my tender skin with the sharp teeth of iciness which didn't stop the thumping but took the focus somewhere else.

"Come on baby, let's get you outta these clothes, huh?"

Dean's hands gently ghosted underneath my back and then pulled me forward and into his chest, letting my heavy feeling head pool on his shoulder as he pulled up my shirt and gently worked the folds loose. The washcloth slid off and landed on the bedsheets but didn't seem crucial since I was too wiped to move and instead I just sort of stayed there slumped against my boyfriend as he patiently and carefully then wrestled my bra loose.

"Ugh, I can't believe how _tired_ I'm feeling."

"Concussion can be a real bitch."

"You're telling me."

More clothes were slipped on over my forehead and I groaned until I realized it was the top I slept in that had formerly been his and so therefore smelt like him, which meant that it was comforting and like a beautiful hug. Lowering me back down, Dean shuffled himself a little and then set about pulling off my underwear which he slingshotted childlike towards the laundry hamper and managed to get pretty close to as well.

"I hope you're going to pick those up?"

My mumble was lost as I turned into the sheets and my boyfriend replied by pulling the covers higher and wrapping me up.

"Maybe one day baby, yeah."

He kissed my head and although I should have challenged him about scattering dirty linen with happy abandon around the room, I was simply too tired to take him to task for it, besides which he had been really, _really_ good and so frankly had he wanted to hang them from the window or run them up a flagpole I wouldn't have much cared.

"Dean?"

"You 'kay?"

"I love you more than laundry."

He snorted sort of wryly but then smoothed my hair again before leaning in closer and planting a heavy _smackeroonie_ right on my temple and up close beside my eye, even throwing in the teasing little _mwah_ sound as he replaced the cooling washcloth,

"Best fuckin' thing I've heard all day."

Boomer shuffled in a little bit closer and I latched myself onto him like a warming teddy bear, as Dean headed off into the bathroom to do something that took a few minutes and made him sort of _moan_ as well. If I had been more conscious I would have understood it and naturally would have happily lent him a hand, but instead the concussion waves dragged me back under and I totally blacked out away from my man.

 _Sleep_.

I woke up again to find the lights had been switched off and to the feeling of Dean spooning me tightly from behind, his arms round my waist and pulling me against him as he blew deep slumber breaths into my hair in rhythmic time. Boomer was still snuggled in on my other side and I was pleased to find that the headache had slackened off a bit.

I was safe in between my two favorite menfolk.

It only took a few seconds to head on back to the land of nod.

* * *

 **Next chapter we have a surprise visitor...place your guesses now and the winner gets...um...my kudos, is that enough?!**


	9. Homebound

**Lots of nice guesses going on here people, so now time for you guys to see if you were right as we welcome our mystery guest for this chapter, read on lovely viewers!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Haha, well, that's a lot of guesses there, but the good news is that one of them is totally right...but as usual because I'm super cruel, I'm not going to tell you and you're going to have to read it through and find out. I think/hope you'll like it though!**

 **Labinnacslove, Yay, glad you liked the last chapter. It was totally one of my favourites too because...well, because and I'll leave it at that! Got some good news for you too about this chapter because your favourite funny character in this series is back! As usual, she's a whirlwind!**

 **Moxley Gal1, Nice guesses but I think I might have outfoxed you on this one! Hopefully you'll like who it is that turns up though. I thought it was about time we saw them again and also they help to move this tale along a bit. Still in the dark? Gotta read to find out!**

 **Mandy, That is a good suggestion but I've actually taken this story in another direction, which you're going to see in the very next chapter but it's going to create a whole lot of drama too. Am I being mean in leading you on? Yeah maybe, but it's good to keep you guessing right?!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Sweet guess but I'm not going quite that dramatic for this one, although there is still lots of drama to come. Instead I'm going to be nice to Lauren in this one and give her something that I think she deserves. Plus she's going to have a brainwave in this too. A big, big brainwave!**

 **Minnie1015, I love writing sexy time and especially when it's Dean just being about the best boyfriend ever because who wouldn't want to write about that?! Glad you're happy I'm posting both together, it's mostly so I don't get confused, but the best of both worlds is always good!**

 **Skovko, Well I certainly try! I like to use all the colors on the palette...or maybe it's that I'm really bad at writing really serious raunchy stuff so I have to throw some comedy in. Plus sweet Dean is a must because...well, it's a must I tell you! There can never be enough sweet Dean in the world!**

 **Mystery guest time...**

* * *

 **Homebound**

"Princess, you're stayin' here an' that's all there is to it."

Dean was striding around the room as he spoke, throwing the last few pieces of his clothing into the bag lying open on our bed. Boomer was sprawled out close alongside it and with a doleful little look on his big furry face, since he knew that the case meant his master was leaving and, like me, it bummed him out. He extracted a pair of socks to showcase his misery and I plucked them from his mouth and put them back in, running my fingers in a scratch beneath his ear fold that made him grunt and twist his head.

"But, I – I'm feeling much better now, it was nearly six days ago."

"Lauren, you got knocked _out_ , you're gonna be feelin' it for at least another week yet."

"I'll take it easy, I promise, I just want to come."

From where he was trying to find his little travel toothbrush in the haphazard way that men seemed to like to search, blue eyes lifted up then flickered over briefly like he was maybe debating his super tough stance. He had been clear from the moment we had left Indianapolis that he felt I would be safer at home for a while and although I had assumed that was just heat-of-the-moment thinking, since then he hadn't let up his position on it once. I on the other hand was less convinced by it, because as always I wanted to stay with him, besides which it was my _job_. I worked in the industry just the same as he did and without it I had nothing on which to hang my hat.

He huffed a sigh out,

"Princess, I can't do it, I can't let you back there until I know it's fuckin' _safe_ , which it's not gonna be 'til I bury that asshole and make sure the whole world knows you're off limits, okay?"

"But how long will that take?"

It was a relevant enough question since he seemed to be gunning for the entire corporate team and they would by no means go down without swinging, besides which they outnumbered my angry boyfriend five to one. Relatively speaking I couldn't fault his instincts and had no real problem with him taking them all down, but if that took months or years then what did _I_ do?

I couldn't just sit at home waiting.

I would go insane.

Dean seemed to know it as well, or at least clue into it, because he crossed the room and came to a standstill in front of me, cupping my downturned face with his rough palms and then tilting it upwards so that he could show me some love.

His lips ghosted my forehead,

"I'll get 'em for you baby."

"I know you will, but what am I meant to do until then?"

My fingers slid through the belt loops on his jean fronts and then hung there like I could maybe persuade him to stay, or else take me with him as some fashion accessory, which was probably a long shot. Dean blew out another sigh,

"You could take up knittin'?"

"I have a job, remember?"

It was a point I felt duty bound to have to make, since he seemed to have forgotten that I also got a pay cheque and while it wasn't as much as his, it was still more than I'd ever made. Back when I had started with the company nine months ago, I had been simply ferrying towels and water back and forth, but since then I had been vaguely promoted up to _valet_ and the increased television time had evidently meant more cash. Not that I was sure who was dishing it out to me –

Did they have a standard pricing or was my father involved?

Naturally his giving me a pay rise seemed unlikely but then somewhere deep down I knew Hunter truly cared. He was still my birth parent in spite of what had happened and although we were not friends, it didn't mean he wanted me poor.

Dean clicked his fingers,

"Princess?"

"What?"

"Y' zoned out again."

"Oh, I was just thinking."

"Sounds dangerous."

I rolled my eyes.

Not that it helped me to much get my point across and so tightening my fingers around the thin bands of denim I pulled him a little closer and then looked up into his eyes. I was attempting to make my explanation irrefutable but his handsome face stalled me in a bubble of happy awe.

 _Lauren, focus_.

I sucked a deep breath in and cleared my throat slightly,

"It's my world now too, I mean, I know that wrestling has been your thing since forever and you know the business a lot better than I do, but for almost a year I've been living and breathing it and I like being around it, I don't want to let that go and it doesn't seem fair that you get to go back to it if I have to sit here being all miserable and alone. Doesn't it mean they've won if I start hiding? You get to have your vengeance and kick some ass, so why can't I?"

Possibly by adding the _kicking ass_ bit into it I managed to strip away some of the gravitas because Dean snorted wryly then shook his head a little, while rubbing his thumbs fondly up and down my cheeks.

"You don't have a place in the fight this time Princess, m' gonna be doin' some pretty wild stuff."

"I can be wild."

"Not wild as in dangerous an' I don't want them comin' after you to pay me back."

"But I could come out to ringside – ,"

Dean interrupted firmly and his entire face darkened like I'd said the wrong thing. His hands stayed thumbing my jawline gently but his expression was something else and it was darker than death.

"No, you're done with bein' my fuckin' cheer team, you deserve somethin' better."

"Okay, like what?"

He shrugged and some of the tension bled away from him so that he actually glanced down and flashed me a smile, pulling in the frankly adorable little dimples that made my heart spin even having seen them a million times.

"I don't know baby but we'll think a' somethin', maybe a nurse with a sexy uniform?"

I blinked,

"You mean find a job outside of the business?"

"Why not?"

"Because – ,"

The doorbell cut me off and I was then inelegantly kicked in the ribcage as the dog startled upright barking loudly as he chased off. Given that we were hardly in the position for visitors, I screwed up my brow wondering who it might be although my boyfriend merely grinned and thumbed my cheeks for a final time before throwing me a chirpy little wink,

"Looks like she's here."

"Who's here?"

Instead of answering me however, he simply turned and strode from the room, forcing me to follow in a baffled little stagger, clumsily trying to shove my fleece-lined slipper boots back on. By the time I managed to make it from our bedroom and halfway down our wide sweeping stairs, Dean was in the process of wrangling the dog back and opening the front door.

"Hey, glad you could come."

"Sorry we're late, Roger just threw up everywhere and I had to pull over to mop it all up."

My best friend stepped breezily into our hallway with a baby on her hip and towing a wheeled bag. More were stacked on the porch step behind her, as well as what looked like a traveling crib and as Dean let go of Boomer to help ferry them in for her, I stuttered out a word in tones of bafflement,

" _Kel_?"

"Laurie – _ooh_ you're right, she does look a little pale still."

It took a second to realize that she was talking to Dean, who shuffled in behind her holding a bag packed full of baby clothes and another one bursting with diapers before nodding,

"I told you so."

Boomer meanwhile was so pumped with excitement that he was actually prancing up and down on his paws and trying his best to sniff my baby godson, who in turn stared back down like he'd found the meaning of life. Round little eyes swung up at his mother then towards the tongue-lolling, uber fluffy dog and were swiftly followed by his hands reaching forward and trying to touch the silky black fur.

"Oh, look baby, is that a doggy – can you say _woof woof_ , can you say _woof woof_ for mama?"

For a second I stood and blinked in bewilderment because the whole thing seemed like a really bizarre dream and I actually turned back and stared up the staircase on the off chance that I had tripped and was sprawled further up, while my consciousness existed in some altered reality where my best friend showed up idly right out of the blue.

"Um, what's going on?"

Both of them stopped briefly and then looked back up at me, as if the answer to that question was patently clear, which possibly it was between the two co-conspirators but remained a huge gaping mystery to me. Seeing the levels of my perplexity however, Kelly stepped forward towards the foot of the stairs, holding out a hand like a mother to a child to which I trudged towards obediently and let her pull me in close.

"Sorry sweetie, I forgot this was a surprise deal."

"Surprise for who?"

"For _you_ obviously fluff for brains."

Her tone was light and borderline huffy but in the very same moment she was laughing as well, in the blue eye expression that I had actually missed sorely and which brightened my heart on being able to see. Passing across my godson she broke things down swiftly as I took the beaming baby and settled him in against my hip.

"Dean didn't want you to be on your own with that head knock, so he asked me to come over for a bit of girl time while he's off putting his fists through other peoples' faces – ,"

Kelly tailed off and then smiling merrily,

"Oh, right."

I was still a little dazed but it was quickly converted as my chunky little godson raised up a pudgy hand and cracked me right across the nose with a toy truck before giggling wildly like it was the best thing he'd ever done. Kelly snorted then turned to help Dean out as he continued to struggle across the threshold with her bags, which looked a little like she was staying forever instead of a few days or however long it was. Boomer padded over again and put his front feet on the staircase, hoping to move a little closer to the boy and so I took a seat beside him and allowed him some sniffing while murmuring to him softly,

"Nice and gentle Boom."

In response to the tickling in around his little earlobe, Roger let out a shriek of delight and my poor pooch promptly skittered off backwards before wagging his tail broadly and moving in for a second try. Roger's tiny hand slammed down on his forehead and then proceeded to bash him on the skull for a bit and even though our canine shut his eyes and flinched a little, his tail kept on swinging as he sniffed across the kid. Evidently they seemed to connect on some level that was way above my lofty adult climes but it made me grin because they looked cute together and so I whispered across the hall,

"Look, our babies are best friends."

Kelly snorted vaguely at my calling the dog my baby, but she smiled nonetheless and paused to drink the scene in, particularly loving her son's wild giggles as Boomer's tongue found out his fingers and began to keenly clean them up.

"Well of course they are Laurie, they didn't have a choice in it."

Dean hauled in the last bag with a grunt,

"'Kay, all done, now I'd better get goin' otherwise m' gonna end up missin' my plane,"

My shoulders fell on instinct and my body slumped with it because the words were the ones I was hoping not to hear, since literally everyone in life that I cared about was clustered about in the same tiny place, missing only Brent and Roman to make it total.

In short, I didn't want my boyfriend to leave.

"Oh."

"Hey," Dean crossed the space in towards me and easily swept my godson back to his mom, before taking my hands and drawing me up into him so my miserable face could pillow deep into his hold, "Princess, m' gonna be back before y' know it, an' it's gonna be easier on me knowin' that you're here safe an' not somehow gettin' yourself into trouble – ,"

I interrupted pouting,

"I'm not _always_ doing that."

In response to it he raised a thick brow in my direction and my duplicitous best friend let out a disparaging laugh as well, meaning that evidently neither one of them believed me and that my growing reputation for seeking out chaos was not in its death throes but instead alive and well. To prove the point, Dean stroked through my hairline and found out the bump on the back of my head, which had shrunk a whole lot from its original egg size but was still kind of tender.

I winced a little,

"Ouch."

"Yeah, that's why you're better here baby."

"I – I'll miss you."

Dean kissed me,

"I know."

Rolling my eyes I swatted at him mildly then was caught unawares as his lips swept in again and took hold of my mouth with such pure ferocity that I actually squeaked and then melted into him. The contact was warm and wet and fully beautiful and as usual it managed to affect me as a whole, from my weak feeling knees to the tingles in my fingertips and I groaned across his tongue in unbridled delight,

" _Mmmm_."

Kelly coughed,

"Um, baby boy being scarred for life here, rein it back folks, he's not going overseas."

Reluctantly we broke apart both grinning, like a couple of naughty school kids which we totally were. Bumping his head up, Dean gave me a loving last peck and then grabbed up the bag and jacket positioned on the stairs. His slid into the leather like he was putting a second skin on and I shivered a little at how damn _good_ he looked, all sort of biker style with the dark jeans and thick boots and further helped by the shades he slipped into place over the top. Bending down he gave Boomer a quick last ruffle and then pointed between the pooch and my best friend with a scowl,

"You two, you got one job here alright? You look after her."

Kelly saluted with a heel click,

"Yes sir."

He snorted in response to it then glanced back at me again and I bit my bottom lip to stop from bawling my eyes out. Even though his blue orbs were reflective-lens covered, I could tell he felt horrible about walking out on me and so I didn't want to make the whole thing worse by crying. Especially because I would be seeing him in three _days_. That was all it was, the sum total of our parting and yet I couldn't help but feel completely desolate about it all.

"Princess, no trouble, okay?"

I nodded and then he smiled at me before heading out and shutting the door, which rendered the entrance hall weirdly sort of silent until Roger started gurgling and chewing keenly on his hand. Kelly looked across and caught sight of my expression at which point she moved swiftly into her patented best friend mode, stepping across to put her free arm round my shoulders and then leading me off,

"Where's the kitchen? We need some booze."

Fortunately however she wasn't being serious since she was still a regularly breast feeding new mother after all and so the pair of us made do with two cups of strong coffee and a packet of cookies I found on a shelf. Roger sat happily nibbling on a chocolate chip and being bounced around like a ball on the tip of Kelly's knee, while Boomer laid next to him gazing in wonder to the point where I decided that my dog was in love. Kelly brushed some crumbs off her lap onto the floor for him and he dived in only too willing to help.

"God you two are sickening together, I mean I thought Brent and I were _schmoopy_ and bad – ,"

"Where is Brent anyway?"

It had taken a few minutes, but I properly clued in to her husband not being there and I had to say that brought my mood even lower because the big guy was like the _other_ brother I'd never had. Kelly flapped her hand,

"He's got a big meeting and couldn't come over, but he sends you his love."

"Aww, that's sweet."

"Mostly however he's sending some serious death wishes to that two-toned little asshole."

I blinked,

"You mean Seth?"

Hearing his name on its own made her angry and she swiped up a cookie and dunked it roughly in her drink, swirling it around in the rich brown coffee and then pulling it out to take an angry bite. She used the remaining half to gesture at me forcefully,

"That total fucking _weasel_ , I hope Dean cuts off his balls and then feeds them slowly to a pack of hungry jackdaws in front of his cold and backstabbing little eyes."

Her ferocity made me pause,

"He – um – visited me in hospital."

"Who did?"

I couldn't blame her for being confused, because the last living person she would have probably predicted to be on my list of worried visitors was the man who had caused the hurt. In fact just _saying_ it was liable to tip her over and so I traced my finger across the table top awkwardly and then tried to say the name like it was no big deal,

"Seth."

" _What_?"

Kelly's screech almost took the damn roof off and I winced as it echoed around the airy room. Boomer looked up with a jolt of bewilderment and even little Roger stuck his lip out a bit and began to huff in breaths like he was thinking of crying, until my pooch stepped in again to lick his hand.

Crisis averted, or – well – part of it.

Kelly gaped in horror across the cookie packet,

"You're shitting me? He actually had the balls to stroll right on in there? What did Dean do?"

"Um, he kinda doesn't know."

"How the hell did you manage to pull that off?"

I blew out a sigh and sank low against the chair back because remembering the whole thing was draining to say the least and I startled as a big fluffy head hit my kneecaps and then hovered in place having picked up on my being sad. I smiled and scratched the spot behind his left earlobe that made his back leg pulse rapidly up and down and it briefly lifted the waves of nervousness off me until I felt a bit better,

"He came when Dean had gone – I mean – Roman was there, but the poor guy was all sleepy and so the next thing I know, Seth is standing in the door and saying he wants to talk to me about things."

"Did he apologize?"

I snorted,

"Not really, no, but I got the sense that a part of him wanted to because it _was_ an accident after all."

Kelly threw her eyes to the heavens,

"Yeah sure, so that's why he levelled the big guy as well? Is that why he was trying to make ground beef out of your boyfriend? I mean, he might not have meant to hit you with that steel chair but he knew what he was doing when he was swinging it the first two times."

I blinked in response and dropped my eyes reluctantly.

There was simply no denying that my best friend was right and although my instinct was to protect Seth slightly, I frankly had no reason to really do that anymore. Not for the man that had been trying to hurt Dean anyway. But at the end of the day, old habits died hard.

"I know, but I guess I still see him as my brother."

"Dean doesn't seem to."

I shook my head,

"He does, he just has a very different way of coping with the big things, besides, it's much easier to be angry than to be sad and he's trying to be strong to stop me from worrying – ,"

I tailed off and left the rest of the sentence unsaid but it was obvious there was more that was harrying away at me and so my best friend fixed me with a motherly look, that clearly was not going to take my unconvincing word for it or accept that I was done.

"But you're worrying anyway, right?"

" _Oh yeah_."

"About what the authority might do to Dean or about what he might potentially do to them?"

In reality though my main concern was sort of _neither_ although obviously those two options were toying with my mind. Instead I was mostly caught up in _my_ future and where my life lay if not near the squared ring. Okay so I had never been an actual performer and never would be or wanted to be, but the traveling circus of wrestling was where my heart was and where I had blossomed into the girl I was meant to be. The thought of having to step away from that was scary and I felt a little like I was grieving for that world.

I sighed sort of shakily,

"I'm really going to miss it."

Kelly frowned at me cluelessly,

"Miss what?"

"Traveling with Dean – oh – and Roman as well, I always loved that."

"So why the hell can't you have it again?"

Based on the way her blue eyes were narrowed, my best friend wasn't following my thread, so I shrugged back shortly and tried to put a spin on it, like it wasn't completely tearing me apart.

"Dean thinks it's way too dangerous to be out there and I can't work backstage as a runner anymore. Hunter or Steph would always be there with me and I wouldn't feel safe walking those corridors on my own, which means there isn't anything I can do to have a place there."

Kelly blinked,

"Bullshit, I'm not buying that at all."

"It's true."

"But there has to be something you haven't thought of."

I shook my head,

"Technically I'd be safest on screen, because no one could grab me without the world whole seeing, but if I'm out there with Dean then I just get in the way, so what am I supposed to do?"

"Find some protection."

Kelly seemed pretty unwavering on that, like she thought I that I could maybe call in the _cosa nostra_ or personal protection officers to tail my every step and which possibly wouldn't have been a terrible idea either considering it would undoubtedly have kept me pretty safe. Idly I imagined sweeping in through gorilla with a host of big black suited federal agents at my side and watching my stepmother gape in bewilderment as they ushered me through with ear pieces and guns. Evidently however, Kelly was thinking differently as she then made clear,

"Isn't Vince still the boss?"

"He isn't just the boss, he owns the whole business."

"So can't you go to him?"

I blinked,

"To say what?"

I honestly couldn't see Vince being sympathetic because if I was on the screen being grabbed by my father or hounded by Seth then it was ratings gold for him and drew the fans ever deeper into our lunacy which meant more ticket sales and viewers and happy things. Besides which he was still very much Stephanie's papa bear and so was therefore more likely to side with his kid and strangely I wouldn't have even begrudged him since it would have been natural –

Blood being thicker than water and all that.

I snorted roughly as I thought of my own father and how he had pretty much shrugged that mantra right off and then lingered briefly on the fact he hadn't called me, or even dropped a text to see how I was. So okay, he probably had connections at the hospital and Seth had no doubt passed on the news that I wasn't dead, but to have heard precisely nothing when I had been flat out unconscious was probably the part of it had emotionally hurt the most. Especially since just a couple of months earlier he had been stood in the office talking his father-in-law down, when Vince had decided to slap me on commentary in an experiment that had gone badly but that the boss had seemed to like.

How could Hunter have changed so rapidly?

I had received an unknown call a few days ago, but whoever it was had chosen to say nothing and so I hadn't quite worked out if it was him checking up on me or not. Maybe just hearing my voice had been enough for him, or maybe it was a butt dial from someone I didn't know. Either way the thought pretty much brought my mood down and I sighed at my best friend,

"No, talking to Vince won't work, the only thing he wants is – ,"

I stopped dead in an instant and then my mouth dropped open as a lightbulb lit up. Kelly saw the look and knew it in a second and she promptly set her third or forth cookie back down, lifting a brow in impatient suspensefulness and then waving her hand in a chivvying way,

"You have a plan?"

I nodded,

"I think so, but I'm going to need plane tickets and I'm going to need them pretty fast too."

Maybe I was crazy or working on concussion, or maybe I was taking control of things for once. But I knew for a fact I didn't want my life to change remotely and so while my plan was make or break, it was the only one I had and the one possibility to salvage my career, not to mention my happy traveling life with Dean.

I knew in a moment that I was going to have to take it.

What choice was there left?

I was going to see the king.

* * *

 **Lauren has had her eureka moment...but does anybody have the first clue what it is? Let's just say it's going to cause a lot of drama and that Dean won't be happy. Drama ahead!**


	10. Into The Lion's Den

**Time for a change of scenery in this story because hey, I like to switch things up. Hope you enjoy the plan that little Lauren has brewing because it's going to be kind of a theme from now on and in the stories which follow on from this one (yeah, I know, I'm teasing you all again!)**

 **Sodapop25, Hi, i see you there *waves* thanks for the review girl! Glad you're down for the rest of this crazy ride, because from here on out it sure gets crazy!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Well you know what they say about sitting on the edge of your seat...better to sit properly in case you fall off! But seriously, glad I've got you eager for this chapter. You know I'm a little devil with the cliffhangers by now!**

 **Labinnacslove, She is completely crazy (like writer, like creation I guess). But you'll have to read on to see if her idea really is crazy or if she's actually being clever for once. Glad you're happy that Kelly is here! Everyone needs a ballsy best friend right?!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Glad you like Lauren and Dean being all cute together, if you ever get to the point where you think they're not cute anymore then obviously I am doing something pretty wrong! More uh-oh to come in this chapter...and the next one...and the one after that…**

 **Mandy, Aww, thank you. Yep, Lauren isn't very good at sitting back and being idle, she likes to have her crazy ideas. Not that they always work out perfectly for her. But then maybe this one will be different...or maybe not! Gonna have to read it and find out (teehee!)**

 **Minnie1015, Haha, yep the drama train is now boarding, so please have your tickets ready to be stamped! In her defence though I think that this latest idea of hers isn't the most terrible one she's ever had, which isn't to say that it will work out the way she wants it. I mean, what are the odds?**

 **HannonsPen, Poor Lauren can't help having ants-in-her-pants syndrome! Plus Kelly is like her enabler I guess, leading our girl into terrible habits! Lol. Is it alright if I blame Kel? Seth and Randy both feature in the next story too so there's more to come from them...watch this space!**

 **Skovko, Yeah, Kelly is not exactly a cool head in a crisis. In fact she's more of a kick-em-in-the-crotch kind of a head in a crisis, so she's literally the worst person for Lauren to have there! Still, on the plus side it makes for a good story (or at least I hope it does!)**

 **I hope we've all been missing Vince...**

* * *

 **Into The Lion's Den**

Despite having been to Connecticut a bunch of times to stay with my father before everything had gone bad, I had never made the drive down the road a few minutes to visit the headquarters of the crazy world in which we worked.

Kelly blinked up,

"Holy shit this is amazing."

In absolute honesty I couldn't disagree as I shaded my eyes towards the towering cube structure and the bright reflective windows that were bouncing back the sun. It was set behind a tiny little patch of greenery and putting the neighboring buildings to shame, with the logo glaring down from an imposing black backdrop and also on the flag that was billowing in the breeze.

I swallowed uncertainly,

"Oh god, I can't do this."

"Yes you can, you're not backing out now."

But the swirl of emotions was fast taking over me, because I couldn't believe we were really stood there, when not eight hours earlier we had been sat in the kitchen, idly discussing the direction of life. Back then my plan had seemed wildly exciting and almost foolproof but now it seemed doomed. Nor did it help that we were close to where Hunter lived and so where we had spent time doing family things and had made happy memories that seemed like cruel pranks now.

Had he ever really loved me, or had he always phoned it in?

Luckily we had established that Hunter was at the taping and with Stephanie too thanks to the promotion for the show and since there was always a lot to get ready, there was little chance that the two of them would be at the office at all. Even so, my heart still pumped pretty crazily and my palms grew sweaty beneath the weight of my idea.

I was going to swan in and demand to see the boss man.

Clearly I was mad, I had to be, right?

Kelly blew a sigh out from somewhere beside me and firmly grabbed my sleeve with her remaining free hand, the other of which was balancing her child on her hipbone as he gurgled and chatted and tried to jam a spit-covered rice cake in.

"Come on Laurie, it's now or never."

"Um, _never_ actually does kind of work for me right now."

I wasn't kidding either –

My knees were shaking badly as she pulled me towards the glass doors in an actual _tow_ , like I was a poorly behaved child being hauled to the dentist who had a bad tooth but didn't want to have it seen. In reality it probably wasn't the greatest of entrances and so I tried to corral my wobbly pins and pull myself up a little bit higher as we walked up the steps and braced ourselves.

"Ready Laurie?"

Kelly was looking at me, like she actually expected me to respond either way and I raised a brow in total confusion and then shook my head back and forth rapidly.

"No."

"Well that's a shame."

"Why?"

In response to my question my best friend threw me a smug little look and then swung in without halting for even a second and passed straight through the big revolving doors, leaving me stranded on the bright steps behind her and looking like an idiot.

I squeaked a little.

 _Crap._

By the time I had taken my turn through the entrance via the slowly sweeping panels of glass, Kelly had already marched up to reception and juggled Roger a little higher to strike a no-nonsense pose. There was a woman in front of her with brown hair in a ponytail and she smiled up brightly but falsely as well, which was hardly surprising given her job was taking phone calls and very likely instructing all comers to take a seat.

Her green eyes darted up,

"Good morning, how can I help you?"

Kelly wasted no time,

"We're here to see Vince McMahon."

For a moment no further words were spoken between them, but a strange sort of staring contest instead seemed to emerge, whereby they both locked eyes across the desktop like they were testing each other's metal, which maybe they were. I was still pushing through the glass doors while it happened but it obvious that neither one of them was going to back down and so sensing that meetings with the boss weren't offered idly, I puffed up beside them and cleared my throat,

"Um, okay – ,"

I didn't even have to finish my sentence, which was sort of a relief since I didn't know what it was, because suddenly the firm green eyes softened with brightness and the woman smiled at me in a pleasant type of surprise.

"Lauren Helmsley, I'll call Mr. McMahon at once for you."

"You – you will?"

My surprise was _not_ cool but in the moment I couldn't quite hide my bewilderment because no way had I ever expected that result, or have guessed that anyone would know me. In actual fact I had been pretty much been waiting to be thrown out and so getting a direct line up to the old man was a truly impressive and jaw dropping run of luck. Then again, even with Hunter and me feuding, I was still technically a part of their blood and so maybe I shouldn't have been all that surprised by it?

No, scratch that, I definitely was.

Kelly snorted disparagingly in response to her and then wobbled her head like she was looking for a brawl and basically still pumped about having been glared at which she expressed with a haughty little snort,

"Damn straight."

I laughed too brightly as the receptionist blinked across at her and then grabbed my best friend by her non-child-clutching hand, steering her away with a smile of deep contrition which I threw across the desktop,

"Um, we'll take a seat over here."

Plummeting down onto the black leather cushions, I stared around the lobby for pretty much the first time, running my eyes over the lashings of polished stonework but not really _seeing_ anything as I looked. How on earth could I when my brain was turning circles and trying to work out what in the hell I was going to say? Having an audience with Vince had seemed like such a long shot that I hadn't thought about how to put my deal across and with time newly ticking down until I got to see him, the panic rose up and claimed me again.

 _Ugh_.

I wanted Dean –

Except that was a big massive problem since I hadn't clued my man into my genius plan, which was a fact that had started to weigh on me heavily because I knew that if I told him, he would in no way approve. Ever since our first few shaky days together, both Dean and I had been on the same page and so the thought of actively going against his wishes and vaguely behind his back was tearing me to shreds. Unable to take it, I scrabbled for my cell phone and Kelly, who was still glaring daggers at the receptionist, broke off to frown across at me,

"Laurie, what's going on?"

"I need to phone Dean."

I pulled free my mobile only to find it snatched from my hands and then straight up dropped down Kelly's ample bosom which was presumably to stop me from trying to fish it out. I gaped back at her in total bewilderment and then spread my hands in a silent _what was that for_.

My best friend didn't falter,

"You know what he would say to you and because you're crazy for him, you would pack up and go back home, but that isn't what you want so I'm not going to let you. Besides, you know he loves to have you with him on the road. Let him pitch a fit, he's a grown man, he'll get over it."

But I wasn't entirely sure that he would and suddenly visions of him walking away from me or feeling betrayed were all I could think. Honestly I was still half debating just sort of jumping her and rummaging my phone loose when the receptionist stepped up, her eyes flicking distastefully over my best friend before landing on me more professionally,

"Miss Helmsley?"

"Um, actually it's _Hope_ for the most part."

She obviously didn't care,

"Of course it is, follow me."

"Finally – ," Kelly stood up juggling Roger somewhat chaotically as she fumbled in her bag for a brand new rice cake, littering crumbs all over the floor tiles and making the green eyed receptionist briefly pause,

"I'm afraid Mr. McMahon will only be seeing Miss Helmsley."

" _Hope_."

But my correction very quickly died a death as my best friend's expression turned from pissed off to fully murderous with a narrow eyed stare that could have soured milk. The chances were high that if I left her alone down there, I would return to find bloody corpses scattered all around the room, but nor did I want to invite her to see the main man if he hadn't authorized it. I spun towards her pleadingly instead,

"Kel – ,"

"I know, I know, don't go slapping any bitches."

I tapped her arm gratefully and nodded,

"Atta girl."

Even so she kept the old death glare hotly pumping as her newly found nemesis strutted away, her high heeled shoes clacking loudly on the granite as I scuttled along behind her in my battered mid-height boots. Clearly we were two dramatically different women since where she was well put together, I was definitely not and it meant that chatter between us was stunted as we stepped into the elevator and began to travel up.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't so much stunted –

It was totally non-existent, that was what it was and made me resort to tapping my fingers nervously before realizing that I was doing a very _Dean_ sort of move.

 _Aww_.

The ping of the car made me start just a little which I goofily tried to idly laugh off although rather than join in the woman simply stepped past me and continued to lead me along a shiny black floor. Evidently the color scheme in the building was simple and comprised basic tones with the odd hint of bright red. The walls were lined with photographs of wrestlers and candid shots, including a few grinning and oiled up ones of Vince. There were doors leading off in every direction, but the pair of us were fast moving to a large black wood set in front and on seeing them I suddenly couldn't help but panic because what if it turned out to be my father in there?

What if I had got the whole thing screwy and they were leading me to my doom or to be captured yet again? With my cell phone downstairs and my boyfriend several states off –

 _Oh god, oh god_.

My chest became tight and I was mentally cursing myself and my stupidity when we breezed right past another desk and suddenly stopped. In fact I nearly crashed into the receptionist, who turned to find me pretty much on her toes. Her green eyes blinked but then the smile pasted on again as she beamed at her colleague,

"Lauren Helmsley is here."

Frankly correcting her again seemed pointless, especially since she then was evidently done and having handed me over to her senior top floor counterpart, she nodded in my direction and then flounced right back off, possibly heading down to a left hook from Kelly.

I shut my eyes and murmured a silent prayer.

 _Please not_.

Mass brawls were quite literally the last thing I needed and definitely not with my godson involved. Having a feisty best friend had many abundant plus points, but avoiding confrontation had never been one.

"Sir? Miss Helmsley is here to see you."

I jolted as the new receptionist announced me over the intercom, which was followed by an all too tense little silence in which I strongly debated just up and running off and might have done too had Vince's gruff tones not then rung out beautifully and put me very mildly back at ease,

" _Send her in_."

In response the woman looked up and nodded sweetly, in a motherly and very _not_ fake sort of way, beckoning me closer and then over the threshold with a word of reassurance,

"He's in a good mood today."

Honestly though it didn't settle me greatly, because I hadn't really seen Vince in a bad sort of mood, but knowing that he had them made it all seem much more dangerous, because what if I somehow managed to bring his high down? Hauling in a breath, I clicked the door open, then crept inside timidly not sure what I would find but somehow not expecting to be greeted by a red wall with a huge dinosaur skull suspended from it.

Whoa.

In fact I was so blown away by the sight of the fossil that I actually stood still merely blinking for a while and therefore forgot about the man behind the desktop who was leaning back in a large and very executive looking chair.

"Lauren?"

"Huh?"

"I wasn't expecting to see you."

Vince had steepled his fingers beneath his chin and was gazing across at me with a look of general intrigue that I guess I couldn't blame him for. After all, the two of us weren't _close_ exactly and for the most part tolerated each other and that was all. Yet in spite of that there was still something between us, like we sort of maybe admired one another's spunk. Vince seemed to like how I wasn't typical for the business and I, in turn, grudgingly respected the hell out of him.

More than likely that was what then made me stutter,

"Oh, well honestly, neither was I – see _you_ I mean, not see myself, because – you know – I see myself every day for the most part, not that I'm a narcissist or anything but there is always a shiny surface somewhere, right? Like this building I guess – um – I like it, it's a very nice place that you've got yourself here."

I wanted the ground to eat me up, because not only was I _not_ being cool and determined, I was also not getting my main message put across and instead sounded like I'd been caught in a blender and was randomly slopping out a bunch of nonsense words.

Vince raised a brow,

"You came to admire the building?"

"Um, actually no."

"I didn't think you had."

Ideally at that point I should have sucked a breath in and centred myself before saying anything else. My grand idea needed to be delivered assuredly and with passion and resolve instead of all in a rush. Naturally however, with the beady eyes on me and the thought of betraying my boyfriend still muddling my head, I skipped too far to the heart of the matter and sort of blurted out the punchline.

"I – I want to take your offer up."

 _Damn_.

Vince blinked and tipped his to one side slightly, like a dog not understanding his master's command. Except for the fact that I was _not_ the one in charge of things and highly likely would never be. He sat himself back and it shifted his face into the mid-morning sunlight which drew shadows across his trimmed grey brows.

"My offer?"

"Well sort of, I mean, it wasn't official but I kind of got told that you wanted me to do it more and so I pretty much figured that maybe you still did and so if you _do_ then I would be ready to take it on."

Okay, not too bad –

If nothing else it was coherent and not quite as stuttered as the sentence before, although the older man simply continued to stare at me in a way a little like the circus had rolled into town, which probably made me the clapping sea lion or an overdressed clown in a tiny little car.

He frowned very lightly,

"You would be ready to take what on exactly?"

"Um, you know, _commentary stuff_."

I genuinely thought he'd got that part already and so felt stupid as I realized that he obviously had not, which thinking about it wasn't surprising since I hadn't at any stage told him why I was there. Resisting the urge to smack my own forehead, I cleared my throat a little with a grimace.

 _Idiot_.

Vince smirked back coolly,

"Who says it's still an offer, or anything other than a one time only spot? I have plenty of people begging me to wear the headset, so what makes you think I would promote you over them?"

I smiled.

He was asking the one thing I had bet on, since I hadn't expected him to agree with me outright. Kelly and I had even brainstormed scenarios and spent the whole plane ride over there roleplaying the thing. I might have screwed up the rest of it royally, but the answer to _that_ question I already had down pat and so before I replied, I drew myself taller and tried to look imperious,

"You said it yourself, the audience likes me and I have good approval ratings – ,"

Vince cut me off with a wave,

"But what else? Why should you get the best gig in the company when you've only be in these hallowed halls for nine months? I want to know why _I_ should make the sacrifice."

His use of the word _sacrifice_ caught me off guard –

Because wasn't that what I had done already by giving my relationship with my stepmother and father up? Hadn't the business come fully in between us and blown apart the tiny little family that I had grown? As far as I could see, Vince McMahon's level of sacrifice included buying prehistoric fossils to hang on his wall. He lived a charmed life and it made me feel angry and brought the last few months back in full and very loudly screaming detail.

I screwed my up fists fiercely,

"Because you owe me."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because your precious and very bitchy daughter _kidnapped_ me and held me in a room with bars on the windows for nearly five days before my boyfriend managed to find me and rescue me – ,"

Vince turned his hands so his calloused palms were upright, then shrugged his besuited shoulders like my trauma was no big deal or didn't impact on his cosy little empire in big enough terms to need to make it up to me.

"Family problems are personal matters."

I gaped in astonishment –

But I wasn't out yet and so instead bit down an actual scream of anger and clenched my fists so tight that my nails dug into my skin and seized up great big handfuls of my dress front that I then almost squeezed into dust with the force. I was about to unleash the very rarely discussed _big gun_ which frightened me half witless but still needed to be done.

"Okay," I started coolly, "In that case you owe me for the fact that your employee tried to rape me."

"What?"

I swallowed down a lump and a wobbly grin of victory because I genuinely took pleasure in the horror on his face, which was mixed with a knitted browed frown of confusion like I had pulled the rug out from under him, which maybe I had.

Either way, it fuelled me.

"Randy attacked me when he was drunk, he – he pinned me to the bed and everything. You can ask Kane for the details, since he was the one who ripped him off me. Otherwise he would have – would have – ,"

I faltered and my anger promptly broke off into a mild and quickly forced down sob. My eyeballs stung and prickled with emotion and my mind went to the flashbacks that I hated so much. My bottom lip wobbled like it was caught on a fault line and although I tried my best, I was close to breaking down.

In the moment I wanted Dean more strongly than ever.

I was stupid to not have told him.

I _needed_ him there.

In the awkwardly drawn silence Vince cleared his throat roughly and then flapped a clean white handkerchief across the desktop at me,

"Here."

I took it with a sniff and then proceeded to blow my nose in it before hesitating for a moment, not too sure I should hand it back. No way would he want it with my goopy snot all over it, but at the same time he had his damn initials on the thing. Seeing my confusion however he waved a hand at me and then smiled very mildly in a fatherly sort of way, which told me not only had Steph and Hunter not told him, but that he felt _bad_ for me and sympathetic,

"You keep it."

"Thanks."

For a moment or two there was nothing but silence in which I continued to shore myself up and brush away the ever threatening teardrops as my heart pounded fiercely and my fingertips shook. Eventually the businessman hauled a deep breath in and then raised his _other_ eyebrow,

"How is your head?"

Presumably he meant my fairly recent chair shot which of course he knew about since he was the boss. Possibly he was wondering if I might try to sue him although I doubted I could since I had run into the line of fire.

Maybe he was just concerned?

"It's – um – okay, I still get kind of sleepy."

He nodded,

"You will do kiddo, but that's the consequence of being brave."

I blinked in surprise for several different reasons, with the first at having been referred to by a cutesy nickname and the second the revelation that he seemed to be impressed with me, which I didn't buy totally and so responded with a shrug,

"Dean thinks it was pretty stupid."

"Because he loves you and I'm guessing it cuts him up to see you hurt."

"Uh huh."

"I'm _also_ going to take a stab in the dark here and assume that's why you're coming to see me now? Ambrose has banned you from being at ringside and you can't go back to your old runners job, so therefore you figure that being out on commentary is the best way to keep your hand somewhere in the company huh?"

He wasn't really asking.

It was more like he was telling me and trying to prove his super astuteness about it all, which it did and _then_ some because I gaped in amazement like I was having a reading with some crystal ball savant.

"I – how did you – ,"

Vince smirked mildly and then threw up his hands,

"It's my business to know, I may be old but I'm not down and out yet."

"So, does that mean I get the job?"

"Does Ambrose know you're here?"

I sucked in a breath and then rapidly blew it out again, which made my entire chest heave up then down, rocking my head from side to side sadly as the truth of the answer gnawed incessantly at me,

"No."

"Perfect," Vince barked, before rubbing his hands together and both the word and the movement totally caught me by surprise, because frankly it seemed like the opposite of _perfect_ , or at least from my perspective if not from his at all.

"It – it is?"

His grin was Cheshire cat like and it made me shift uncomfortably, since it meant he was clearly mulling something over or working on a plan that he wasn't sharing with me. Usually when that happened I had to do something or put myself out in a way I didn't want, although, on the flip side his sudden broad grinning also implied that he liked my idea.

He nodded,

"Can you imagine their faces when you walk out there and take a seat behind the desk?"

"Um, walk out where?"

"On Raw tonight."

I gaped at him and then goldfished stupidly, working my slackened jaw repeatedly up and down. Was he honestly suggesting that I be at the taping, surrounded by my enemies like they didn't mean a thing? On top of which I was still stood in his office in Connecticut whereas the show was several states away from there. I would have needed tickets and a plane ride. Naturally however, instead of express that in the time honored fashion of speaking actual words, I merely blasted out few halting half words while shaking my head in bewilderment,

"But, how am I – I'm not – I couldn't – ,"

He cut me off swiftly, which in the scheme of things was probably the best course of action for us all. His eyes flashed keenly and he chuckled a little, his confident sounding voice all but booming around the room. Leaning in over the desktop he pounded the intercom and then heralded his secretary before she could even say a word,

"Gina, get me the private jet on standby and send somebody from contracts up at once."

" _Yes Mr. McMahon_."

My head started spinning, because frankly it all seemed to be happening too soon and although it had been my idea in its entirety, the process of it turning from vision to reality was deep and terrifying and I was doing it on my own.

Dean was going to kill me.

I was an idiot.

No way could I do it without talking to him first and in the moment I felt that conviction so strongly that I opened my mouth to try and slow it all down, or to take it back or to briefly throw the brakes on, although as it turned out, I didn't get the chance.

"Um, Vince?"

The boss man was barely even listening which was why he didn't particularly reply, although he did grin in at me over the desktop with a look so damn approving that it stoppered my tongue up.

"This is going to be great for the company, you're leading us into a brave new world."

I blinked.

I _was_?

Maybe he had a point there, because not for years had a woman been on commentary, or at least not in a super long-term position as a regular staff member and equal to the men. It had always been guest stints or comings and goings and yet there I was going to be at the tapings, getting things said for the average girl and reacting and responding for all the watching ladies who had always sat and suffered beside their _yahooing_ men. In actual fact it made me feel bubbly because I had never been at the cutting edge of anything before and so suddenly commentary was the chance to make a difference, which totally appealed to the career side of me.

Besides which, what spot was safer than the announce desk?

Well, okay not the _desk_ itself as such –

But the commentary team were rarely dragged into brawling and were the voice of show who had been handpicked by the boss. In relative terms it was a method of protection and therefore, much as I had hoped for, my chance to keep my place and keep on traveling the highways with my boyfriend in the life that I had never wanted to give up. The knowledge of not having told Dean still killed me, but I squared it away since it was what I had to do. I wouldn't be scared off and I would show my errant father that they couldn't get rid of me _or_ my brawling man, because the pair of us were never going to run away frightened and we wouldn't be separated either.

That was the plan.

* * *

 **Sooo, how do we feel about Lauren's plan? Is it a good one or a bad one? How will Dean react? Next chapter Lauren makes her new grand entrance. See you there!**


	11. Making An Entrance

**Well, I was going to give you a bit of a synopsis for this chapter, but I think the title might say it all! Either way, Lauren is going to take her first steps towards her shiny new important commentary role...wish her luck because she's going to need it!**

 **Skovko, Yep, keeping that girl as far from the Spanish announcer table as is humanly possible is very wise plan although knowing her she would probably trip and fall into it anyway! Kelly gets a mention here but she's not on commentary, can you imagine what that would be like?!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Hmmm, I'm not too sure that Dean knows what the word calm really means! Or maybe he knows what it means but not how to apply it? Either way you're going to get hints about how he feels in this chapter, but the conversation between them is still very much to come.**

 **Mandy, Thank you, mum is getting there, hoping to have a date for the operation soon to get that part out of the way. As for Lauren? Yep. She might not always go about it the best way but you can't deny that she doesn't at least try to get the things she wants in life!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Thank you! Little clue about how Hunter feels about all of this coming up in this chapter now, but there is definitely more the come between father and daughter in a couple of chapters time so stay tuned for that.**

 **Labinnacslove, Absolutely she is going to shock them all. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that Lauren takes just about everyone by surprise here, friends and enemies alike! Nor is Michael Cole terribly happy but then again, who cares about him right?!**

 **LunaticxLass, You know, I'm not even sure it would be fair to let Kelly fight Seth, because the poor boy wouldn't stand so much as a chance! Lol! Kelly everytime. You're right that Dean can't stay mad at Lauren forever, but you can bet that he's going to at least give it a try!**

 **Minnie1015, Nope, our favorite irascible wrestler is certainly going to be having words with his best beloved about this, mark my words! But then again, I know you love when there's a bit of tension between them, so the next few chapters will be totally up your street!**

 **Back to our girl then...**

* * *

 **Making An Entrance**

Being trapped in a car with the boss man and _only_ the boss man was a pretty fantastically awkward thing. Particularly since we had never really bonded despite our weird sort of part-family thing and which hadn't been helped at the lunch nine months earlier where he had blackmailed me in exchange for keeping schtum about my dating Dean.

 _Oh yeah_.

I very nearly almost forgotten about that bit, although it likely was the reason I had always held back, since forming any kind of meaningful relationship with a man who had strong-armed me had never been top of my list.

Only now he was helping me. Maybe that deserved some _chitchat_ which was my usual approach when it came to making friends. Made up essentially of talking incessantly until I plain wore them down or crept in under their skin. Much like I had done with Dean.

 _Dean_.

I shivered a little, because quite frankly I was terrified about how he would respond. We had texted a little, or more like _hourly_ , in the idle sort of way that we usually did but from my end each response had been carefully worded so he wouldn't catch on that I was heading his way and race to the airport to pack me back off again, which I knew for a fact he would do given the chance.

Not that I had lied to him exactly –

I couldn't and nor did I want to do that, although my answers weren't totally forthcoming either and instead for the most part were essentially downright vague which wasn't the same thing as flat out deception or making up some totally hokum story, right?

 _How's the head Princess_?

That text had been easy, because it hadn't required me to falsify at all and so my fingers had tapped the truth out on that occasion, detailing the mild thumping but reassuring him I was okay. The next text message though had been a little more difficult and I had groaned when I received it,

 _What's my dirty girl up to_?

For a second I had thought that somehow he had rumbled me, but on calming down had realized he had meant in the general sense and was likely bored and sat in the hotel room, having done his workout and idly looking to kill some time.

My response had been masterful.

 _Fancied a change of scenery, so I'm out of the house and keeping busy with some things._

I had felt truly terrible but I figured I was protecting him, because if he knew what I was up to then he would have gone mad and possibly thrown a television from a window or punched a passing person and then ended up in jail. Although I still hadn't been able to settle the feeling that I was lying to his face and therefore letting him down.

It was why I had hoped some _chitchat_ with the boss man would help quell my growing nerves –

Yeah, that hadn't worked as instead Vince had spent the entire two hours practically surgically braced to his phone and variously shouting at and laughing with people until my ears rang and I honestly contemplated bailing out. If I used the time honored tuck and roll method and wrenched the door open, then I could land in a ditch and hotfoot it back home to Las Vegas somehow, simply reverting back to normal so that Dean would never know. Instead however and fearing fatal injury, I had simply stayed put and sipped my champagne which had actually been poured on our arrival by a chauffeur and which essentially was my lifeline.

I wished Kelly was there. But given that she had Roger to contend with and was _kind_ of a distraction at the very best of times, Vince had seen fit to drop her back home again, taking her halfway in the private jet with us and which my best friend had very enthusiastically agreed to with her usual flare for diction.

" _Private jet, holy fuck_."

Hmmm –

So on seconds thoughts maybe it was better that my swear prone bestie had not joined us fully for the impromptu road trip. Which still didn't mean that I didn't miss her company, because honestly speaking I totally did. In fact I wished anyone I knew _at all_ had been there, including the girls I'd hated back at school or maybe a knife wielding psychopath or something because then at least I could have had a person to talk to, instead of sitting and screwing my sweaty hands up as they dripped like a stream or a steady bath leak.

 _Gross_.

In fact, by the time we pulled up at the arena, I was right on the border of a panic attack and was hauling in air with such sudden motion that I worried about there being any left for Vince to have. Most of the time when I was close to fully breaking, Dean was right there to gently cup my face or murmur out gruff little sentences at me while his blue eyes held me and his thumbs stroked my cheeks.

" _Dean_ – ,"

I shut my eyes and allowed myself to feel it and slowly the panic began to steadily slough off, with the tight fisted fingers squeezing my atrium loosening a little and then unfurling all at once, while the tingling feeling of horror lessened slightly and took a step back until my breathing evened out. Dean's mottled orbs stayed fixed in my daydream and so even when he wasn't there, my boyfriend's love still kept me calm.

"Right then," Vince started, snapping his cell phone and his rough tones made my physically jump, "Ready to make a little company history? I'm telling you kid, this will blow off the damn roof."

"Um – ,"

He was out of the car before I could answer, probably guessing that my response wasn't going to be as pumped and he was right, since I didn't want to blow the roof off _anything_ least of all my deeply loving relationship.

 _Ugh_.

The chauffeur extended a polite hand in my direction and I awkwardly slid across the leather and battled my way out, nearly clipping my head on the door frame in my shaky-limbed hesitance. I nodded haltingly,

"Thank you."

Vince was halfway through the parking garage ahead of me and so I put on a clumsily sort of little burst of speed, practically jogging as he strode off determinedly and with an impressive turn of pace for a man of his age. He walked with a jaunty type of weird swagger like his legs weren't properly attached to his hips or maybe like his balls were made of base metal, which was entirely likely since things he touched turned to gold. More likely it was the outcome of owning everything around us and I couldn't really much blame him his posturing for that. Still, it made him look a little bit silly, although since he was my protection I skittered beside him and stuck close.

 _Oh god, oh god_.

My tension rose tenfold as we swung from the garages and into the halls, where I honestly expected to see Randy or Hunter or maybe even Bray but saw nobody at all. The white washed walls and tangled corridors were empty and it caught me almost entirely by surprise, like maybe we had pitched up at completely the wrong arena, in spite of the fact we were surrounded by branded stuff.

"Um, Vince? Where – where is everybody?"

He grunted a little in amusement,

"You'll see."

He strutted right into gorilla like a peacock and I stepped in through the curtain with my heart in my mouth, since I knew for a fact that my stepmother would be back there and would start yelling like a banshee which would then summon my dad. In fact, I was _so_ fraught and confident of seeing her that – much like the corridors – I was stumped when she _wasn't there_ and instead the only real reception we engendered was from the behind the scenes production crew who were staring wide eyed.

Huh?

The mystery of everything seemed to deepen, although a familiar face made me blow out a thankful breath and then almost shed a tiny tear of gratitude because I finally had a friend,

"Here you are Mr. McMahon."

Matty stepped forward, holding out a pre-arranged microphone and earning himself a tiny grunt of semi-gratitude from the suit wearing boss man who clearly had a working plan.

"They're out there now?"

"The whole roster, just like you asked for."

Vince nodded back with a pleased hum,

"Good."

I still didn't have the faintest clue what was happening, but glancing to one side at a flash of sudden brightness drew my attention to a monitor screen, which was feeding back the ongoing live broadcast and which made me stop and goldfish.

"What the _heck_ – ,"

I was looking at the rampway, where a crowd of people were stood gathered, dressing in shiny trunks or tight fitting lycra and frozen in time and not saying a word. It took a blink or two to finally place them, but my addled feeling eyes slowly picked the figures out and I realized that I was looking at the entire gathered roster who were waiting together and staring down at the empty ring.

Vince had –

Vince had called an actual _summit_?

I shook my head in a measure of shock and was still fully gaping like I was trying to catch flies out, as he turned around towards me and gave my arm a rousing slap. His eyes were sparking with the same brand of readiness that Dean and the boys always got before a big match and which was obviously the performer in his old bones waking up again in a way it hadn't done for a couple of months.

"Wait for my cue, then come out when I call you."

His perky instructions took a second to compute and so I nodded at first without really taking them to heart much before they slowly rounded out into actual words –

 _Wait_.

"You mean you actually want me to go out there?"

I surged forward towards him in a desperate lunge but timed it too late as his music hit loudly and masked my growing and all but guaranteed freak out. Vince was turned away from me and looking to the curtain as the roar of the crowd cut in through the notes and despite me trying to hook the back of his jacket, he ghosted through my fingers unawares then stepped out.

"Crap."

The crowd went wild in a mixture of elation at his unexpected showing but also a shower of heavy boos and the noises burst through me a little bit like gunfire because in just a few minutes their bellows would be focused on me as well. I honestly wasn't sure what the hell I was doing. Brain trauma, that was simply what this whole mess _had_ to be and I was strongly debating just leaving the arena when a pair of hands grabbed me and I yelped,

"Lauren? It's just me."

"Matt – ,"

"What in the name of Liza is happening?"

"I – I'm joining the commentary team."

" _What_?"

If Vince had wanted to blow the whole roof off, then he needn't have looked further than my friend's ear splitting squeal and as the backstage crew turned to look at us in bafflement, he further hyped up the moment by shaking me as well.

"You're getting a promotion?"

He seemed super happy, but I shook my head numbly,

"I don't want it anymore."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I haven't told Dean yet and he told me to stay at home and – ugh – it's such a mess."

Based on his expression of suspicious confusion, I could tell he was about to demand a full scale debrief, but whatever he was thinking was swiftly interrupted as the music died down and was replaced instead by Vince. He was swaggering around the ring like a prime of life stallion and briefly the camera angle moved across to Steph, who was frowning and wide eyed in total bewilderment and with a hint of uncertainty like she was tensed for something bad.

Never in my life would I get their dynamic –

The McMahon family was just straight up weird.

Vince waited a second for the yelling to tail off a bit but didn't seem hurried or bothered by the hate. In fact he seemed to drink in the booing like he lived off it or reaction of any kind, bad or good and so even though it took another forty seconds, when the noise tapered off he was still ready to go.

"Tonight, this company is gonna make history – ,"

I had to admit that it was a pretty lofty start, but by hyping me up in such a dramatic fashion he only raised me higher and gave me further to fall, which I would probably do like a stone or blazing meteor and so I clamped my eyes tightly and murmured briefly,

"Please shut up."

He kept on going instead.

 _Yep, figures_.

"Tonight we are going to be changing things up and bringing a little life to the commentary table by giving a chance to somebody I think you all know, someone who says what the rest of you are thinking and reacts like the fan she has recently become – ,"

It felt like I was waiting for the damn executioner and that wasn't a good thought by any sort of means and I was so focused on the monitor and the swaggering bluster that I startled a little as Matty tapped my arm,

"Huh?"

"Seth was out there being interviewed earlier, talking about why he turned on the guys. He said a bunch of pretty bad things about your boyfriend and basically trashed every one of you guys, I thought it was probably best that I told you, that way you can get him back when the headphones go on."

I blinked,

"Right now, I'm not so sure I'll say anything."

Vince raised a teasing finger on the screen,

"Yes, that's right, I said _she_ – ,"

I blew a long breath out and then groaned a little as his one-man monologue carried on, drawing out the agony my frantic body was going through and tempting me to cut him off and simply step out. Although traipsing through the curtains meant cutting through the wrestlers including asshole Randy and my turncoat of a dad. I honestly wasn't certain I would even make it _that_ far save for the fact that Roman and Dean were there as well and wouldn't let trouble of any kind come near me.

 _Crap_.

I turned to Matty,

"Have you seen Dean tonight?"

He snorted,

"Are you kidding? He and Roman kicked the show off _and_ beat the crap out of 3MB as well. Those boys are waking up way bruised tomorrow, but it was hella entertaining to watch it go down."

I winced,

"So it was bad?"

"Not as bad as what came after it – I'll tell you something babe, your man is a killer on the mic."

It wasn't something that needed spelling out to me, since not only had I seen Dean's promo work in person, but I had also seen a little of his back catalogue was well, from his days on the indies when he'd been wild and drunken and spitting out everything and anything that came to mind. In simple terms, when Dean spoke, other people listened and so I didn't doubt that then of _all_ nights, he hadn't let himself down. In fact I could pretty much only _imagine_ what he'd spouted and it made me hugely nervous,

"Okay, give it to me straight."

My skinny friend faltered,

"Um, he called Seth a cancer?"

I blinked.

Retrospectively he could have said worse and although I assumed there was more to the story and probably a whole speech of threats that I had missed, my attentions were suddenly drawn by a bellow from the grumbly voice still pacing the ring, which had been prattling on near unabated in the background and which I had very _very_ briefly forgotten all about.

"So ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for your newest announcer, Lauren Helmsley."

 _Oops_.

My face fell rapidly and I gaped in pure horror because his yell of an introduction meant that I had to go out. I had missed my chance to make a run for the airport and instead was staring down the biggest moment of my life.

"I – I can't – ,"

"Babe, you're gonna have to."

Matty clamped his hands down tight around my arms and then marched me firmly to the billowing black curtain like he thought that if he didn't I would simply turn and run. Honestly he wouldn't have been wrong on that assumption since the thought of stepping out there was spinning in my head and looking to the monitors didn't help either since they were focused on my father who seemed to be totally dumbstruck.

 _Oh god_.

I was going to have to go out there _past_ him –

Randy too.

I vaguely shook my head, then spun round and grabbed hold of Matty's shirt front like I could possibly convince him not to make me take the plunge.

"Please, this is crazy, I – I don't know what I'm doing."

"Does anyone in this company?"

Matt gave me a shove and I stumbled out behind the thick wall of wrestlers, who pretty much were focused entirely on me and wearing a variety of narrowed in faces that journeyed the spectrum between pissed and all out shocked. I couldn't see Dean but then I didn't want to because I knew that he would very much be on the _pissed_ side of the camp.

Oh who was I kidding?

I wanted to see him desperately since no matter what was happening and how I was feeling, it was his blue eyes and dimples that made life seem calm.

"Lauren, _go_."

"Huh?"

It was Matty who hissed at me and his words sort of spurred me into a hesitant trot which carried me awkwardly right through the roster, who had thankfully parted like a biblical sea to make a path. Down in the ring, Vince was swaggering proudly and as the spotlights found my features, I focused on him and in particular at the black topped desk by the ringside which was essentially my striking point and _would_ be from then on. Around me the crowd were whooping and hollering, although mostly it arrived as a massive wave of noise, which blended with the whistling in my ears from the concussion and the panicky screaming emanating from my brain. To begin with I couldn't even tell they _were_ cheering and so picked up their elation and approval like a snail.

But yes they were –

They were happyto see me and that sparked a tiny modicum of confidence back again, like maybe my being on commentary wasn't crazy and was still the great idea I had hoped it would be. In fact, for a minute little second or several, I actually felt positive enough to adopt a sort of strut although it then fell heavily like an avalanche of boulders as I caught sight of Hunter.

Stephanie too.

Not to mention Kane and Seth and Randy –

Because there they all were like the damn _Addams Family_ glaring at me from the front of the staging having no doubt pushed themselves into the very best spots like they somehow actually fully deserved to be there but which we all knew for a fact that they totally did not.

I swallowed my tongue. My knees knocked badly and my mind quickly spun through the things that could go wrong, from my father grabbing me and hauling me away again, to Randy pushing me down and trying to –

Nope.

I was already wobbling enough on my boot heels without needing to throw in a flashback as well. Passing out in the middle of the roster mid-intro would not only have been embarrassing but a very bad look. Still, I couldn't deny my growing panic and it only got worse the closer I got, forcing me to look to the wrestlers on my other side in the hunt for a friendly and very gorgeous face.

 _Bingo_.

Dean was standing at the front opposite them and his expression was one of sheer disbelief. His blue eyes were blinking but clearly not comprehending and I didn't really blame him since he hadn't been warned. In an instant I felt guilty for having put the look there but just seeing his features alone made me stand tall and so I swallowed down the lump that was crawling my gullet, painted a shaky smile on and then headed for my chair.

"Here she is folks, better than ever."

Vince was selling me for all I was worth and in response I nodded my head like I was genuinely grateful and then tried not to run the last few steps to the desk.

 _Get there, get there_.

I reached it in a stumble and then clung to the edge like it was some sort of raft, focusing so hard on hauling in oxygen that I only very marginally noticed the three men. By which I meant my brand new colleagues who were obviously as baffled as everyone else. Michael Cole was blinking at me much like a goldfish although King was at least wearing his perpetual grin.

I waggled my fingers at them sheepishly,

"Hey all."

In the interim JBL hauled a leather chair across and stationed it beside him as he scrabbled for spare headphones and juggled around with cables to get me plugged in but mostly just seemed to tie them further in knots. A technical guy stepped in to help him and the Texan's sharp eyes swung up towards the boss, checking to see that the owner was watching and in the process explaining his keenness at once.

 _Kiss ass_.

I almost muttered the phrase audibly and then bit my lip, because that stuff would have to stop. Vince might have wanted me quirky and unfiltered but unbridled-god-damn-idiot wasn't how I was hoping to come across. I was there to do a job, not become the comedic sideshow and so with that thought in mind I hauled a breath in and took my seat. The headphones managed to drown some of the noise out and I found that it helped.

Michael Cole then made me jump.

"Lauren?"

"Huh?"

"This is pretty unexpected."

In essence it seemed to be the one abiding thought and more that than, one I totally agreed on. I mean, twelve hours earlier I had been back at home and eating pity cookies and moaning bitterly to Kelly about how my sports entertainment career was all done. Being behind the desk and having a pair of headphones was startling to _me_ , so had to be nuts for them. In no other industry could that sort of thing happen and yet there it was and there I was.

Wow.

Go me.

"Um, yep, _surprise_ I guess, but – uh – I'm looking forward to being here."

Down on desk front before us were a series of monitors showing much smaller versions of what was playing on the screens and as I glanced over, them I timed it to perfection with the wily old cameraman focussing on Dean. His expression had altered since I had trotted out past him and in the minute since it had happened, his face had turned to something hard and was wearing the ticks that I knew were fuelled by anger.

He was furious with me and possibly feeling betrayed.

 _Oh crap._

"I for one think it's a genius suggestion," JBL chipped in with his usual drawl and loud to the point that he almost half deafened me in a bellow that it was obvious he wanted the boss man to hear, "This table has needed things shaking up for a while now and Mr. McMahon could _not_ have made a better choice. Like he said gentlemen, we're making history."

In response Michael Cole glared back with actual daggers, or maybe not but with eyes that came real close, then pointedly ignored his posturing partner to fix me with a snide and knowing little look,

"So, who do you think will win our final match up?"

"Um – ,"

I glanced down at the paper on the desk, hoping to find some sort of a line-up and seeing only blanks sheets or scribbles instead. JBL tried to help by tracking one down for me but there was something in the question that I didn't much like. What the hell was Michael Cole up to? In the end I shrugged back at him,

"I'm not too sure, I haven't exactly gotten up to speed yet, maybe you could tell me who the opponents are?"

His eyes twinkled merrily and I felt my gut roll over because evidently the two of us would never be friends, which was fine in the sense that I didn't really _want_ to be, but didn't feel particularly reassuring right then.

His answer was bright,

"Our main event is the Wyatts, versus John Cena, Roman Reigns and The Lunatic Fringe."

I shut my eyes and bit back a grumble.

This was going to be really _really_ bad.

* * *

 **So, how do we think Lauren is going to get on commentating her first official match and how does Dean feel about this whole thing?**

 **Cast your votes now and I'll see you in three!**


	12. The Thick Of The Action

**Thank you so much for your lovely reviews guys! Had kind of a tough week but they make everything worthwhile! Lauren's first real turn on the microphone here then, but let's just say she's a teensy little bit distracted!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Hmm, yep, I think you're right, expect the fallout of Lauren's decision to bite her hard in the next installment because choices have consequences after all! Still, plenty to be getting on with in this chapter too. Bring on the wrestling!**

 **Moxley Gal1, Agreed, I mean, Dean is only trying to protect her but she's a grown girl and she has to make some decisions for herself. Don't worry either, Roman is going to be there to try and help because he's awesome so how could he not?!**

 **Guest, Thank you! Hopefully you'll like this chapter too because we dive headfirst back into the wrestling action with one of my personal favourite Shield (or half Shield) matches because there are so many feels!**

 **Labinnacslove, Haha, except our Lauren and Michael Cole to be butting heads in the stories to come because she still hasn't forgiven him for bailing out on her back in the first story when the Rhodes brothers showed up. Plus he's Cole, so he's generally annoying!**

 **LHisawesome4ever, Yeah, poor Dean, he really has curveballs coming at him from all angles in this story, maybe I should give him a break...nah! And yep, Lauren is seriously going to have to make it up to him as you will see in the next chapter, because he is not a happy man!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Aww, I'm never going to be too mean to Dean, so don't worry, I love him too much to leave him sad for long (well, okay, maybe another few chapters!) But hopefully having Lauren officially at the announce table makes up for our favourite boy being blue!**

 **Mandy, As ever you are entirely welcome for the post and I'm just glad you liked it so much! Lauren as an announcer was kind of a gamble but I figured the girl had deserved a promotion and if nothing else then she is going to be fun...chaotic, of course, but also fun!**

 **Minnie1015, You seem to have very limited faith in our girl managing to make it through one night without disaster, I mean, I don't know why you would...oh no, wait, yeah I do! She is usually a huge disaster, but maybe she'll surprise you...sort of perhaps?!**

 **Skovko, Precisely! The girl wants to have plausible deniability when the brown stuff hits the proverbial fan! Plus she doesn't want to lie to Dean completely so it's kind of a win-win situation for everyone...well, except for him. Minor detail!**

 **Let's play ball...  
**

* * *

 **The Thick Of The Action**

Perhaps given the fact that my head was still reeling and possibly dented from having taken a chair, putting myself into a screaming arena not seven days later was a terrible idea.

Because that's what the crowd were doing around us –

They were screaming for the two men trampling down the stairs and heading for the ring to a backbeat that pulsed through me and hurt my aching skull but also warmed me as well.

Dean.

Dean and Roman looked ready to do business and made my proud little heart fiercely swell, but at the same time it was obvious that someone was missing and in case that fact wasn't blindingly obvious to everyone, my desk partner decided to announce it as well,

JBL sounded genuinely excited,

"This is the last time we'll ever see The Shield."

His words cut through me and I swallowed a gulp back because suddenly the whole thing seemed far too real and not for the first time I wondered what I was doing there, when I could have been home, tucked up with my pooch.

Michael Cole disagreed,

"You know John, that's a bold prediction – ,"

They could have been reciting the code of conduct for all I cared, since my throbbing eyes were focused pretty much in their entirety on the lithe black clad figure moving swiftly our way and vaulting himself fully over the barricade like it wasn't thickly padded or a lofty four foot high.

I blew out a breath.

 _Thank god_.

Dean being near me in any real capacity was like a burly, soothing balm and in that moment I needed the proximity fiercely since I was riddled both with nerves and the knowledge I had done wrong. I _had_ after all. I had totally blindsided him and not even given him a heads up or a call, so eager had I been to find myself a foothold and aware that had I told him, he would have dragged me back home. But possibly the thing that I hadn't considered was precisely the way my boyfriend would respond and so therefore was stunned and hurt when he ignored me.

He just climbed into the ring.

He didn't look at me once.

Evidently I had been moved into a spot deep in the dog house and it made the nerves turn over then build up once more, because what if it wasn't just him being pissed at me –

What if I had broken up everything we'd ever had?

"Lauren?"

"Huh?"

I spun around quickly to find my new colleagues casting over at me and realized that I had missed some pivotal question that it was now my job to have to listen to and field.

 _Crap_.

Michael Cole sighed.

Not that I blamed him given he had been as caught off guard as the rest and probably deeply resented my being there and sharing his limelight when I didn't know the ropes and couldn't keep focus for more than a minute.

Honestly speaking, it was _not_ a great start.

"Um, I – I'm sorry, would you mind repeating that?"

"I asked about the injury you received last week when Seth Rollins hit you on the head with a chair."

Based on his expression he was considering the same thing and possibly replaying the image in his head to square away the ignominy of having me out there with them. It made me wince a little to remember it over and it was possible that I even very vaguely flinched too, because before I could even think of forming an answering John Bradshaw Layfield was there like a dart,

"Come on now Michael, how do you think she's feeling? Poor girl nearly lost her damn _skull_."

"Um – ,"

He was trying to be gallant but it wasn't very helpful and a ball of nausea rose up that I swiftly pushed back down. Looking up my eyes found the figure of my boyfriend who was still stood ignoring me, turned away in the ring and it took every last scrap of power I had in me not to scramble through the ropes and leech myself onto him.

 _Please Dean, please look_.

He didn't even falter and my pleadings were then stifled by a rattling sound, which set off a hailstorm of whooping and cheering as a very bright and luridly dressed John Cena scampered out. Half the time I wondered how he didn't burn his retinas with the lustre of his wardrobe but evidently he seemed to not, although the lime green certainly added to my headache which was starting to thump and angrily pound.

"Ugh, too loud."

Michael Cole shot a look at me as I abruptly remembered that I was wired for sound and therefore being fed right the way across the nation like a grumbling drunk getting wasted in a bar. His eyes stayed on me for maybe a second and then turned to his colleague,

"Well King – ,"

 _Damn_.

I was going to have to pull my metaphorical socks up to prove to the three veterans that I truly belonged and so resolved to push all my baggage to the side again and do my very best to be professional and in control. I might have even succeeded in that mission had the lights not then turned off and dropped us into the gloom and given what had happened in the past in such moments, I reacted instinctively with a frightened hiss.

"Oh hell."

From seemingly out of nowhere and up on the rampway, Bray Wyatt appeared holding his creepy little lamp and drawing a hush that would have been actually impressive had it not been being caused by a hateful swamp maniac of a man. Phone lights lit up the arena around us and I watched holding my breath as the lantern moved in close, highlighting one half of Bray's horrible patterned shirt front –

Had some sort of memo about bad clothing gone around?

By the glow of his trinket he took a seat in his rocking chair and then in time to his creepy ass music, leaned a little closer and blew the thing out, which at once seemed to trigger the bright main arena lights back and revealed all three of them and their wild beard growth too. Well, all except Rowan who was hidden beneath his lamb mask and which in hindsight was probably a pretty good thing.

Pumped with the seeming adrenaline of the pre-match, Bray let out a bellow and then launched from his chair, pacing back and forth and then shoving his comrades like bodily assault was the best way to make them work.

Lawler chuckled, but it wasn't an amused sound,

"Look at the sight inside of that ring."

He meant the three men standing side by side together and possibly the most unlikely darn trio there ever was, since Dean and Roman had spent most of their career path beating the uber good boys like John Cena fiercely down.

Michael continued,

"This match was set up by Triple H earlier – ,"

I interrupted him sharply and speedily,

"What?"

Honestly though I wasn't sure why it surprised me, since in essence it was precisely the sort of crap he liked to pull and although my father obviously hadn't figured on my arrival, it wouldn't have changed his plan remotely had he known.

Michael Cole then made that clear,

"He said this would be the last time we ever saw The Shield in action."

His sentence made my heart flip fully around because part of me was terrified that the sentence wasn't bluster and that my world would still change if I was in it or not. Mostly though I was pretty damn heated and furious with the man who was making things worse. Not that having Bray Wyatt at ringside was ever a way to lift my mood and as the crowd noise began to build up around us, the three giant swamp men suddenly strode in close, hauling themselves up right onto the apron and then initiating a intense sort of stare down with their foe.

My heart was in my chest –

I simply couldn't help it but through some innate link my boyfriend simply seemed to know and so regardless of the fact that he had roundly ignored me and was clearly pissed as hell, he slightly turned his head around and let his blue eyes quickly sweep over me.

It calmed me a little.

He still didn't want me harmed.

Roman moved first and then suddenly fists were flying as my two black-clad boys began to pour out their hurt and lay down some serious moves on their enemies like they were fighting with punch bags in anger management class.

"Here we go – ,"

Michael Cole was there swiftly as beside him Jerry Lawler chuckled out a little laugh and seemingly harked back to his own days of glory and the evident pleasures of tearing people limb from limb.

"Uh oh, look out, the fight has come out here – ,"

Bray and Harper both tumbled roughly from the ring and landed in a tangle of cheap material right in front of us, followed by Roman who was tracking them down.

"Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt out to the announce table – ,"

Michael Cole meant in the literal sense as well as the bearded creep who months ago had kidnapped and held me hostage, stumbled shakily forward and dropped down onto the desk.

 _Crap_.

In response to his arrival I pretty awkwardly scuffed my chair a metre back, because the foul whiskered features were uncomfortably close, although luckily a tattooed pair of arms hauled him loose again, then delivered an impressive and ground shattering right hook.

Bray went down and I reacted instinctively,

"You go Roman, show him who's boss."

I was back to simply responding like the audience and to that end I even threw in an actual whoop before I realized and blushed, because it wasn't very professional. Little wonder they assumed I would be a car crash on the mike. Beside us the bell rang belatedly for the start of things, at which point I realized that Dean and Rowan were in the ring, over in the corner with the familiar taped fists flying and then bobbing and diving as my boyfriend took control. Dean seemed borderline possessed with base emotion and it made me fill up with unmistakable pride.

"A frightening interview with Ambrose earlier when he said what he would do if he gets his hands on Seth Rollins – ,"

I snorted,

"If I don't get to him first."

It wasn't a terribly _me_ sounding sentence but in the heat of the moment it was precisely how I felt. Seth had been my friend and I had loved him completely, but he had shown no remorse and nor had he come back. I had honestly thought that a week of no contact and reflecting on his actions would have fixed the whole thing, but instead it had only entrenched us both further and made the hopefulness I had been carrying turn slowly into hate. Pretty much the entire announce table blinked at me, but were swiftly interrupted by an incoming Dean, who charged across the ring to shove Harper off the apron and then followed it up by launching over the top rope.

"Look at this – ," Michael Cole was beside himself, "Ambrose is trying to take out _everyone_."

Landing on his feet as the bearded swamp monster fell heavily and pooled down onto the thick padding with a grunt, Dean straightened up and shot me a half glance and while it still seemed angry it was also pumped up and checking that I was okay very very briefly before he turned and scrambled back in under the ropes. He was moving like a blitz and in control of every motion, which was obvious to everyone.

I grinned,

 _Go baby, go_.

Roman tagged in and I bounced in excitement which was starting to build up and chase away my blues. I mean, okay sure, I wasn't doing much announcing but then again I never much had done before, letting my natural enthusiasm lead me, as it did in that moment,

" _Aha_ , big dog in the house."

Unfortunately however my newfound animation clearly caught somebody's attentions in the back, because the next thing I knew Michael Cole was looking hesitant and then posing a question that he had been obviously fed across. If not even _he_ was prepared to say it to me, then I knew for a fact that it had to be bad.

"So, Lauren – ,"

 _Uh oh_.

"Um, yes Michael?"

"Do you regret turning your back on your blood family now?"

 _Ouch_.

It was blatantly a question with my stepmother's name all over it and I could only imagine her huddled in gorilla with a grin on her face as she snapped out the line and tried to beat me down using a proxy which was frankly so pathetic as to be pretty sad.

I sucked in a breath,

"Not for a moment, I mean, it's hard to miss something you never really had."

"But even after everything Triple H has done for you – ,"

"I figure that became redundant after he drugged and kidnapped me before holding me captive, wouldn't you say?"

My reply was pretty scathing and although I shot it coolly back across the table, we all knew it was heavily aimed somewhere else and given that the barrage then seemed to tail off again, I figured that maybe on that front I had won. Michael Cole even nodded and quirked his brow a little before quietly agreeing with my sentiments.

"I would."

Back in the ring the boys had changed places and my boyfriend was in the process of trying to break Harper's leg, which I registered with a levity that maybe should have been worrying but over the months had just become a fact of life.

My boyfriend earned his living by twisting off kneecaps.

Nothing too weird about that, right?

Dean then proceeded to launch back into the corner and used his flailing fists to take out Rowan and Bray and although in the moment it lit me up considerably, since I _always_ liked seeing them being beaten up, the whole thing then ended with a boot to the features that didn't so much hit him as nearly knock off Dean's head.

"No – ,"

My yelp was accompanied by a horrified hand flap as I instinctively clamped my fingers across my mouth, fixing my eyes on the unmoving figure that had literally been mown down and was blinking in a daze. Dean didn't know where he was or what had happened and on that front for once, I could totally feel the pain and sympathize like I had never before had been able to.

 _Couples Concussion_.

Perhaps we could start up a new trend?

In spite of his clear and obvious addlement, he managed to kick out of the ensuing pin but then lay panting groggily in a slumped half-sit as Bray Wyatt grinned lustily and tagged himself in.

Lawler shook his head,

"Boy, Ambrose's eyes rolled into the back of his head on _that_ one."

In the scheme of things however, stating the obvious didn't help and nor did it make the grim prospects any better as my poor bedraggled boyfriend was hauled upright by his hair, in a way that forced his beautiful locks together in a sweat-stuck copper blonde colored mohawk of sorts.

I thumped on the table,

"Ugh, what's with the hair thing? Is this a wrestling match here or elementary school?"

No one answered, but it wasn't from a lack of empathy and was instead all because a thundering Bray Wyatt cut them off, leaning in across the shell of my boyfriend and then screaming in his ear like the asshole that he was.

"C'mon Ambrose, c'mon Ambrose – ,"

He made things even worse by slapping Dean's face, cuffing him so hard my poor man fell over backwards and then treating him to some vicious big booted stamps on the chest. In return I shifted and went borderline apoplectic in soul crushing angst,

"Why won't the referee make him stop?"

JBL snorted,

"Would you wanna try that?"

"No, but then again it _isn't my job_."

Rowan then tagged in and continued the beatdown and when he finally let up, Dean bailed out, by which I meant he dragged his poor battered body out of the ring wholesale and fell to the floor in a heap. Back in his corner, John Cena was going crazy and booming out sentences that didn't really help and basically bleating like some sort of giant idiot while my boyfriend lay panting and barely able move.

 _Shut up John_.

Following him out, Rowan hauled Dean back upright but only long enough to drive him into the barrier wall and I winced as Dean literally bounced right back off them and then slithered down again looking sweaty and confused.

"Come on Dean, fight."

I was back to quietly muttering which probably wasn't great in terms of my job description but was honestly the only way I knew how to cope and for a very brief second it seemed to be working as he bundled up his strength and threw his attacker into the steps,

"Uh oh, reversal – ," Jerry Lawler exploded in a burst of what was obviously an approving sort of mirth.

Rowan clambered up again, clutching his arm closely and with a look of genuine murder on his face. Dean was trying to haul himself back vertical, but he was cut off halfway up and tossed back into the ring. Bray tagged in and was on him in a second and I snapped my eyes shut.

How much more could he take?

In answering me however, the universe chose cruelty, since the next few minutes were full of incessant Wyatt tags as they set up a veritable merry-go-round of torture that threw Dean to the canvas time and time again, pinning him, beating him and keeping him from his corner where Roman looked on restlessly and Cena kept up his chirp.

"Come on Ambrose, make it to the corner."

What did he think Dean was trying to do? He wasn't out there knitting scarves for the winter and so his chatter made me angry but also tongue-tied as well, because every last second that my boyfriend was trapped in there was becoming a task I wasn't sure I could take. Nor could Roman who even broke up the three count in a burst of hot anger after a takedown from Bray and which resulted in him being roundly kicked onto the outside, where he lay on the ground in considerable pain.

 _Ugh_.

"Dean Ambrose crawling across the ring, symbolic of what Triple H said here earlier tonight in that The Shield was going to whimper into extinction – ,"

I couldn't hold back,

"My father says a lot of things but I've come to realize that most of them are empty, so if I were you, I wouldn't take that one to heart. I _know_ they can win, so don't write them off yet."

It was easily the most passionate thing I'd said all night and engendered a brief spell of baffled looking blinking which I took in with pleasure.

I would always defend my man.

But by the time Harper tagged in, Dean had been stranded for ten minutes and was pretty much at the point of running on fumes. His mood if he lost or submitted to the pin fall, would know no bounds in terms of being low and so as Harper hit him with a pretty crushing right hook and he toppled towards the ring ropes, I slid my headphones off. I had no idea why or what I should say to him but all I knew was that I somehow had to help him and so to which end I decided to yell across the crowd at him,

"Dean? Come on, I know you can do this, please get up, get up for me Dean."

Blue eyes slid up from where his body was slumped towards me and for a second he merely blinked like he didn't know who I was, but then, from out of nowhere there was a spark of recognition and a flash of something better, like adrenaline or fight.

 _Yes_.

I grinned and he somewhat dazedly watched it happen, then began to drag himself hand over hand back up the ropes, allowing his opponent to stomp in and haul him upright and even add another hook which knocked my boyfriend back.

"No – ,"

Instead of slump over in a heap at it however, Dean ducked backwards then slung through the ropes, taking a burst of momentum from the tension and launching himself forward with the lariat of his life. It came out of nowhere and took the top of Harper's head off which honestly could _not_ have happened to a nicer or bigger lug and the pair of them both went crashing down heavily where they lay for a second like they were bewilderedly taking stock.

Lawler bounced about excitedly at the movement,

" _Oh_ , now tag."

That was precisely what Dean then did, bursting in a desperate stretch towards his corner and tagging in the ludicrously luridly colored one, who dove into the fray to a burst of elation that almost blew the top from the arena itself and which allowed Dean to roll onto the floor in a dead flop, whereupon Roman skittered over to worry and mother hen.

Thank god.

Every bone in my body was yearning to scuttle over and wrap up my heroic trooper of a wildly battered man, but I couldn't forget that I was no longer just a valet and the reminder of that came in Michael Cole's excited chat,

"Here comes Cena – Cena and Rowan – John Cena with a shoulder tackle and now another one – ,"

I frowned in bewilderment.

If the sum total of being at the commentary table was simply describing what was happening in bursts of words, then perhaps I wouldn't be so bad at it after all since quite frankly I could have done that while painting my nails.

I even tried it out,

"John Cena with a backdrop – John Cena with the wavy hand – John Cena with Harper – ,"

Michael Cole shot me a glare but the dual sounds of chuckling from JBL and Lawler told me that I had passed as a mimic if nothing else and so I grinned back again feeling suddenly confident because Dean was safe and John Cena was clearing house.

Or, at least he was for all of a minute, because then it all went wrong a second time and so as my boyfriend stumbled back onto the apron, it was to the sight of the shaven headed man face down and that in itself seemed to create a thread of topic that Jerry Lawler offered,

"The Wyatts work together so well because they're _family_ and they know each other."

"Well so do Roman and Dean."

My quick retort drew a snort from beside me as JBL seemed to doubt the truth of what I'd said and predictably it got my hackles up on instinct because who knew the guys and their working dynamic if not me?

"I'm guessin' they thought they knew Seth Rollins pretty well too then?"

I faltered briefly.

Hearing his name still kind of really hurt and ripped apart the wound that had been slowly scabbing over and it made it feel oozy and tender again. Whether the big Texan was being fed the lines or otherwise, he was still planting his boots where they didn't belong and so I took a deep breath and reaffirmed my position, being truthful the whole while.

"I mean we all trusted Seth but he's chosen his own path now and there's nothing that we can do to get him back, but that doesn't change anything with Dean and Roman because those two are brothers and they will be until the end."

 _So take that bully_.

I wisely didn't add the last bit, but wanted to fiercely and maybe even would have done, had the bellowing of the crowd not reminded us of the match up and made us all look back hurriedly to find Roman tagging in.

I threw my hands in the air,

"Yay Big Dog."

He came into the ring like a horse from the traps and positively launched his muscle mass at Harper in a series of blows and clotheslines and hits, paying the bearded goon back for all his happiness and the general pleasure he had shown whaling on Dean.

"Look out, Erick Rowan – ,"

Michael Cole yelped a warning but since it couldn't be heard by the competitors I wasn't entirely sure who it was for. Luckily however Dean spotted it swiftly and climbed up the ropes as the boiler suit charged across, looking to drive his forearm right into Roman but instead getting my boyfriend in a brawling bear hug.

"Here's Ambrose," Lawler laughed hysterically and I couldn't help but grin as Erick Rowan went down hard, seeming powerless to stop Dean holding his head in place and setting him up nicely for a Roman drive-by.

 _Ooooh_.

The audience responded to the skull kick nicely and then the next thing I knew they were on the outside, with Dean having driven Rowan over the top rope and then both of them clattering in close to my spot.

My smile fell.

Crap.

I hated having the Wyatts near me and particularly when they were standing in between me and Dean. I looked up hesitantly and then realized that I shouldn't have because the cold little swamp face zoned in on mine and then stepped towards me and made my heart turn over.

Except –

Rowan stopped dead then seemed to have a rethink.

 _Huh_?

Evidently his instinct was still to try and pound me and had I met him backstage then that was what he would have done, but something about being out there in front of the cameras and as a part of the announce team seemed to cover me somehow and so instead he spun away back up beneath the ring ropes to break the three count that the big dog was going for.

Lawler chuckled,

"That was a close one."

I gave a shaky smile,

"Yep, you're telling me."

But inside I was buzzing with a type of elation because to my mind that had proved that my theory was right. It had proved that being out and being part of commentary was a means of protection that was better than none and quite frankly I couldn't wait to tell Dean about it and get myself off the hook for having shown up and caught him out.

" _Spear_ – spear by Roman Reigns."

I looked up as the Harper's body thudded down on the mat then grinned with pride as the crowd freaked out around us and joined in with the three count before exploding again.

"Reigns, Ambrose and Cena win."

Michael Cole sounded like he had been out hiking, since he actually seemed to be borderline breathless and pale in a way which made me worry for his heart, not to mention his general health levels.

I grinned at him anyway, feeling smug,

"Told you they would."

But the moment was still sad, because when I glanced back again Dean and Roman were in a tight familial hug and holding one another like they wouldn't get the chance again, which I guessed as a part of The Shield they wouldn't have. It made me falter and I sniffed just a little because suddenly the whole thing was totally unfair but at least they still had me and we all still had each other and as long they stuck to that, our little world would be fine.

* * *

 **Or will it?**

 **Dun, dun, duuuunnnnn….**

 **Next chapter Lauren and Dean have a little conversation about her recent choices in life and how they might not be to his liking. But I'll save the specifics of that until next time!**


	13. Baby Don't Go

**So, I think I've teased you lovely people for long enough now. Are we ready to find out what Dean's reaction to this whole thing is? Hold onto your hats!**

 **Labinnacslove, Not even her being an unintentional comedienne on the microphones is going to put a stop to Dean's bad mood I'm afraid! But then, he only gets angry because he cares about her. Or at least, she** _ **hopes**_ **he still does!**

 **Mandy, Ooh, writing rockstar? I like that title. Does it come with a hat or a pin, lol?! Glad you liked the last chapter though. I love that match in real life, so it was fun inserting our girl into the mix. Lots of drama in this chapter, but I like to think it worked out well...not for Lauren though…**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, I think Seth was probably grumbling through that whole match both in this story and in real life too, but especially here with Lauren on the microphone sticking up for her boyfriend and Roman as well. But you're right, he deserves it!**

 **Sodapop25, Thank you! Hoping you'll like this one too, because we finally get back into the real relationship drama, not that it turns out terribly well…**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Well, the good news is that you no longer have to wait for more, because here it is! Got lots happening in this chapter and some strife between our favourite couple, because everyone loves a bit of drama, right?!**

 **LunaticxLass, Fear not curious cat, here's your next instalment and yep, you might be totally and completely right on the drama front and also about Lauren finding trouble wherever she goes. Time for Dean to show how he's feeling and get a few things off his chiseled chest!**

 **Skovko, Well, sadly, because it's our girl, she is so happy that Dean won the match, she forgets they even need to have conversation at all. *Ahem* Let's just say that Dean puts her right on that in a fairly big way pretty quickly. He is not a happy D-Man!**

 **Minnie1015, She did survive! No Wyatt drama (well, no more than the usual anyway) and nor did any of her new colleagues kill her either. Result! But yeah, this chapter with the relationship discord is a Minnie-special since I know you love the drama, you mean girl you!**

 **Fallout coming...**

* * *

 **Baby Don't Go**

For a moment or two once the taping had ended, I sat in a stupor not sure what to do and not even totally convinced how I was feeling since my head was feeling foggy and painful and raw. Every last part of my system felt tired which I guessed was a reminder that the concussion was still in place, but I also felt alive and flushed full of adrenaline because in spite of all the hardships I honestly felt I had prevailed –

Me.

Little Lauren.

I had an actual full time role now and not only that but my boyfriend had won his match and taken a beating but kept on fighting and in the process earnt the cheering and respect of the crowd. For their part the audience were still buzzing around us and although their noise didn't much help my head, their total excitement and elation was infectious and made me grin inanely.

I _was_ the girlfriend of a lunatic after all.

In terms of leaving my position at the announce desk, I wasn't too sure of the protocol involved. I had literally no idea if I had to stay longer, or if maybe there was some sort of post-show brief thing. Naturally what I wanted was to be with my boyfriend and to dodge my fuming father and get the hell out of there, but at the same time I didn't want to bail out too early and so instead took off my headphones and then sat looking lost.

"Um – ,"

Michael Cole glanced over in my direction as I tentatively issued the uncertain sound and then took off his own headset before lacing his fingers and giving me a look that I couldn't really read. In terms of expressions it wasn't a kind one but since he wasn't frightening he couldn't pull _scary_ off, meaning that his face sat somewhere in the middle like an overworked teacher staring a student firebrand down.

"Vince wants this to be a permanent thing then?"

I shrugged as they all looked over at me,

"Yes?"

It came out with a wince which didn't sell my confidence and in response to it the slighter man heaved out a bitchy breath, like he couldn't believe what he was having to put up with although luckily Jerry Lawler was more comforting by far.

"Glad to have you here with us Lauren."

I smiled,

"Thanks King."

His words meant a lot, because although I could cope with them being disgruntled, my need to be liked was still pretty strong and so I appreciated having at least one sole supporter to back me up if things got too tense or went wrong. From my other side JBL bit out a grumble but it wasn't so much resentful as resigned to the way things were. He held his hands up,

"Well, if they're the boss man's orders, then I for one am happy to go along."

Michael Cole snorted,

"No surprises there John."

Evidently in the few months since I had last joined them on the microphone, their married couple bickering had yet to slow down and to prove that they then launched straight into trading insults that reminded me of being back in high school again.

"Just because I'm a company man Michael – ,"

"Actually it's called having a backbone John."

"Is that why you were sayin' everything they were feedin' you?"

It felt like being in some mismatched sitcom, whereby two hugely fractious and quarrelling opposites had been forced to share a rental to drive through a storm and were sending one another's limited patience levels soaring, but who deep down loved their bitchy partner a whole lot.

Yep –

My new colleagues were as crazy as the rest of them.

Luckily however, I was saved from their brawl by the sudden appearance of something black in my periphery and a smell of sweat and aftershave that I knew only too well.

 _Dean_.

My heart skipped at once and I swung my gaze up towards him with a grin that I could never have ever fought down, since him being there made everything better and began to put the madness of the night into some sense. He was stood alongside me with an arm wrapped round his middle and tenderly bracing what I assumed were bruised ribs and I moved my palm at once to flatten it across them but instead found it caught in my boyfriend's strong grip.

"Come on."

His blue eyes were shimmering with severity but since they were focused on a point past my head, I pretty much assumed they were levelled at my workmates in a warning not to push things or mess me too far. In fact I actually took it as a warning and my ever protective partner doing what he did best and so didn't even falter in responding to his order and letting him pull me away from the desk.

"Bye guys, see you tomorrow for Smackdown."

I threw in a chirp and a smiley sort of wave, then giggled a little as I watched them stare back at me, Lawler utterly on his own in moving and giving me a corresponding salute in return. Evidently among them, he and I would be best buddies and it made me grin wider.

I was happy again.

Happy enough in fact to actually start skipping or at least adopting something a little friskier than a walk and I beamed at Roman as we drew in towards where he was standing keeping silent guard at the foot of the ramp. Up in the ring John Cena was still strutting, like some muscle bound peacock that had been dipped in fluorescent paint and I snorted in derision as we scuttled our way past him because I honestly was glad that _my_ man wasn't like that.

"Ugh, he's so over the top about everything," I shot in a disapproving whisper at Dean who merely grunted and then kept on towing me, straight past his watching brother and then alongside the ramp –

Huh?

For a moment I had assumed we would be strolling through gorilla and to be frank I had been kind of bracing for that, but obviously the guys had another plan worked out and I sighed when it bypassed the spot my stepmother was.

 _Thank god_.

Not that I couldn't have stood my ground if I'd been forced to, because in many ways I was continuing to ride the natural high, but at the same time my head was thumping like a demon and I felt nauseous and tired and wasn't ready for another round. In that moment the only things I wanted were my boyfriend, our comfy hotel bed and my snuggly pyjamas set and I was stupidly convinced that those things would be no problem and that life was all peachy.

It was anything _but_ that.

Dean shook my hand off the second we were backstage and into the long but safe feeling corridors again, following which he spun towards me rapidly with his blue eyes firing both icy and hard.

"What the fuck was that?"

I blinked at him.

 _Uh oh_.

I had totally managed to forget the surprise thing and the fact that I had swanned to ringside like it was perfectly normal when I was supposed to be back at home miles away. I also forgot that I hadn't informed him and that like everyone else, I had caught him off guard and although I mostly blamed my thumping head for my addlement, it was probably down to my stupidity as well.

"Dean I – ,"

"You're supposed to be back in Vegas Lauren, what the fuck were you thinkin' showin' up here? Are you _that_ fuckin' crazy that you took a job on commentary? Did Vince come to the house?"

He was almost dangerously fired up but seemingly working on some sort of believe process that the company boss had come calling for me himself and somehow coerced me into hauling my ass out there, which would have been preferable but wasn't the truth. I winced and bit my lip just a little because I had to frame my answer so as not to make it any worse, which didn't really work because he knew me too deeply to be fooled by my uncertainty,

"Um – ,"

He let out a groan,

"I fuckin' knew it, _you_ went to _him_ right?"

In terms of his general and not totally misplaced outraged, it was nearly a mirror image of his mood ten months before, when I had turned up announced and snuck into the arena before finally revealing who my long lost father was. His response back then hadn't been too happy either and evidently that reaction was again burning through –

Dean was fist clenchingly, _crate kickingly_ angry and I utterly hated being the stupid root cause.

"I – I'm so sorry."

He looked up at me fiercely then snorted in amazement like he couldn't quite fathom that I had pulled out that word when the scale of my screw up was so way beyond as to make it seem like I was underplaying the whole thing by a mile.

"So that's it, huh, you think you get let off with a _sorry_?"

"It isn't like I meant for things to go down the way they have, I just – ,"

Blue eyes flashed,

"Just what – betrayed me?"

I gaped as the bottom fell clean from my gut and then crashed to the floor like a porcelain heirloom, before shattering into a million tiny intricate pieces that skittered across the linoleum and under the packing crates into the gloom. His reaction was specifically my worst fear realized because in many ways it _did_ seem like I had gone behind his back, but that wasn't the truth of what had actually happened and there was no way I could let him for a second think that. I let out a sob and then surged in towards him, grabbing his hand and then holding on tight.

"No that isn't it – oh god – please don't think that, I was doing this for us."

"Bullshit."

"Honestly I was, I couldn't bear giving up our life on the road together and I was trying to fix things – ,"

"By goin' against what I said?"

His sentence made me falter and then bristle just a little because my head was screaming at me and I was starting to feel like crap, on top of which I was being accused of having acted for my own interests or for purposefully hurting him which I certainly had not.

"Don't I actually get to have a say in what happens at any point?"

Dean's answer was particularly inflammatory,

" _No_."

Roman shifted from the wall to the left of us and then unfolded his big and previously folded broad arms, flashing a frown as he rumbled at his best friend and warned him not to go and say the wrong thing.

"Hey."

Dean looked over and then slumped down a little and it hurt me because calming him was usually my job. My role in life was to cool off my boyfriend and yet there I was instead being the reason for his mood. The fingers of my hand were still tucked in around him, but he took a step backwards and again shook me off and my breathing hitched in response to his aloofness –

I had to make it better.

I had to make us alright.

"Dean, please, I – I knew you wouldn't let me but I wanted to do it, I wanted to be with you."

He stopped and then looked up at me and although he was still angry, his blue eyes seemed to sense the truth of it at last and for a second I thought that we had maybe turned the corner, but as it turned out I had misunderstood and also underestimated just how pissed off he was because in terms of how we were, things were definitely not good.

"But I don't fuckin' _want_ you to be here, don't you get that?"

His words were like a knife to the gut and I actually gasped and then staggered back a little like he had driven the blade point first into my soul. My eyes filled with tears and the second he saw them, Dean's fierce expression drooped in sympathy a bit and he blew out a growl and reaching a taped up hand out, although I shook my head brokenly and moved further off.

Dean didn't want me to even be around him?

Did that mean our life together was over and done now?

How was I meant to go on without him since his absence from my life would leave me with nothing but a void and a future that stretched off into the distance without any family, trapped all by myself?

"Princess? _Fuck_."

His voice was a grumble, because in spite of the warnings he _had_ said the wrong thing and although I felt horrible it was oddly reassuring that he cared enough still to not want me physically breaking down. Not that I could help it as I began to choke sobs out, shaking like a leaf,

"I – I can't lose you as well."

Moving in suddenly he swept me against him and then pillowed my head down onto his chest, letting me bury my throbbing face into it and cry out the tears that were longing to break loose. The fact that I was moving through emotions so readily was probably some sort of latent effect of the head knock, although knowing that didn't really stop them from coming and my boyfriend spoke over them as they continued to blubber on,

"I _meant_ I don't want you here gettin' in trouble, I was fuckin' tryin' to keep you safe."

"But – but I don't want to be safe a million miles away."

I left the rest unspoken.

 _I want to be with you_.

"Not an option I'm workin' on right now, there's too much shit goin' on that involves you, an' I'm not lookin' to give those bastards the chance to use you or parade you around like some cheap fuckin' pawn. Fuck, I've nearly lost you twice already and there isn't goin' to be a fuckin' third here, alright? So when I say you're stayin' at home, I fuckin' mean it – you're not a wrestler Lauren, this isn't your world."

Peeling away from the folds of his shirt front, I pawed away my hot streaky tears and then shook my head like I could make him understand things,

"I have a job now."

"So we'll tell them you quit."

I paused,

"I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I signed a contract."

Dean's eyes grew wide and then angry again and his hands dropped away as he quickly paced away from me, before turning on his heel and marching right back, wearing himself a tiny groove in the linoleum as he tried to work his fury out and clicking and tapping and cracking his fingers in a fruitless attempt to _not_ punch something out.

"Fuck, _fuck_ – ,"

He kicked at a packing crate and it moved very vaguely but otherwise stayed put and instead it was his voice that travelled the distance as he opened up his mouth and let a few more swear words out. I let him do it but flinched just a little because the explosion of noise was a gunshot in my head and it forced the thumping to step up its tempo and slid the ball of nausea a little higher in my throat.

"Baby girl?"

Roman stepped in to stand next to me as I pressed the cool palm of my hand to my head and then let my hot feeling eyes flicker shut again in relief at the sensation. I mumbled back,

"M' okay."

"Is it your head?"

"Uh huh, it's all sort of _poundy_."

Blinking into the overheads I was startled to find Dean back and ducking in front of me with his brows pulled in tightly like he could ascertain my health through mere eye contact alone. I blinked into his blue orbs and then sniffed at him a little because I was still very aware I had done everything wrong and I hated the fact that I had made him so angry and given him added trouble he was never going to need.

"I'm so sorry Dean."

It came out as a whisper and the fact that he ignored it made me sniffle again since it meant that I had yet to be totally forgiven and I still wasn't sure that he would ever give in. Instead he blew out a breath of frustration and snapped a quick question,

"You feelin' tired an' sick?"

"Yes."

"Probably because you should be back at home restin' instead of haulin' your ass all the damn way over here."

His sentence was firm and fully disapproving and I nodded and then let my head fold forward onto my chest, bumping my chin down hard on my collarbone and blinking the tears back sadly,

"I know."

For a second I wasn't really sure what would happen, but evidently my boyfriend had the solution figured out, because he looked up and barked a sentence at Roman which was short but demanding, like he wouldn't accept a _no_.

"Hey man, take her back to the hotel for me will you? An' make sure she gets herself some fuckin' rest."

"Sure thing."

I blinked in response,

"But where are you going?"

Naturally I had assumed we would be driving back as one and sliding into the oversized rentals just like we always did after a show. Dean not being with us was something my poor brain hadn't guessed at and so it took a long while for me to process the point and come to the realization that he was making his own way.

He gazed at me steadily,

"I need to clear my fuckin' head."

"What does that mean?"

I couldn't help my frantic need to ask him, since his not wanting to be near me was totally new. My chest was cramping like I was having a heart attack and my breathing was happening in panicky little gasps. I had my teary eyes glued onto him tightly and so saw him flap his hands and shrug frustratedly,

"I don't fuckin' know, I just need – I just need to blow off some steam here, get drunk or somethin'."

"But I don't want you to go."

Moving forward I again snagged his hand up and it made him blow a breath out and look me in the eyes, he seemed worn out and beaten up and totally haggard but most of all he looked expressionless, like he wasn't connected to me at all.

"Princess, you remember our conversation a couple months back?"

"What conversation?"

"When you walked out of our hotel an' because you fuckin' needed to, I let you do it and step out the door?"

I gaped in amazement because if he was actually being serious then he was talking about the night that our lives had first turned mad and started us out on the slippery slope to hatred that currently existed between me and my dad.

I shook my head,

"But that's when Hunter grabbed me."

His face twitched a little but he kept his gaze firm, with his fingers hanging down loosely in my tight hold instead of curling round me, like they usually would.

"I know, but the point is, you asked an' I did it – works both ways baby."

"But, you're coming back, right?"

I was starkly aware that in terms of conversation, we were having almost exactly the self-same one we'd had back then, but instead our roles were reversed for the rehashing, with me needing the hope that he would in fact return and that the loving relationship that I absolutely treasured was still intact and would weather the storm.

Dean swallowed a lump down and then looked up at Roman,

"Look after her, alright?"

He nodded,

"You know I will."

Knowing that my boyfriend was about to walk away from me, I went to launch myself bodily around his form and attempt to stop him from walking away from me because I needed him near me and I needed his safe fold. A pair of arms caught my shoulders and halted me, as Roman swung in swiftly and pinned me against him,

"But – ,"

"Baby girl, let him go."

Dean paused briefly and then spun his gorgeous body and stalked away without looking back, twisting off his tape and throwing it roughly in a sticky and screwed up little ball at the walls.

"Has he left me?"

Roman grunted,

"He just needs a little space here,"

Big hot tears were scorching down my face and getting stuck in my throat until I clucked like a bantam feeling utterly sorry for myself. At no point had anybody moved to reassure me that my life as I knew it hadn't come to an end and although I hoped like mad Dean wasn't ending things, the fatalistic part of me was terrified that he was.

I turned around and gripped Roman's vest front,

"Please tell me honestly, is he – is he saying we're done?"

Big brown eyes peered down at me gently and he shook his chiselled head until his long black hair fell down.

"He loves you baby girl, more than anyone and you know that."

In the moment it was the sentence that I needed to hear the most and yet it still felt hollow because my boyfriend wasn't with me and was instead heading off and into the unknown both angry and completely alone to do _whatever_.

I swiped at my tears,

"You – you need to go and stick with him, what if something bad happens?"

Roman smiled at me a touch,

"I got my orders baby girl I'm sorry, now come on, you need to rest that messed up head of yours."

He used his big hands to steer me around and into the locker room where their things were hung up, taking both his own _and_ my boyfriend's belongings before herding me out in the direction of the car. I spent the whole journey staring out of the windows and intermittently crying and searching for Dean, praying that I hadn't wrecked the trust he had put in me and that somehow we could fix things.

 _Please Dean, be okay_.

* * *

 **Yep, sorry, big big drama…**

 **Tune in next time folks to see what happens and also for Roman being a kickass big bro!**


	14. The Dog House Blues

**So before we start this I would like to say that Roman is basically the best in this one. I would also like to say that this is the second to last chapter so we're close to wrapping this baby up! I will say it on the next one the same way as always but I'll say it here too...THANK YOU EVERYONE!**

 **Sodapop25 *Takes a bow* thank you, I loves me some drama and also the fallout of the drama which is what we have here. Hope you like it and I'll see you next time!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Well, we all know what that boy is like! He's certainly a hothead alright. Luckily Roman is in damage limitation mode on all fronts, so maybe just maybe he can talk some sense into him. Not that Dean is the only person that Lauren has to worry about here…**

 **Wolfgirl2013, No two ways around it, Roman has really shone in this story, which is probably because Seth was kicked into touch. But yeah, Roman was great last chapter and he is even better in this chapter too, so I hope you enjoy that!**

 **Moxley Gal1, Not to worry, it's all in hand...or is it? Hahaha *evil laugh* But no, even though I'm not going to tell you exactly what happens, I promise Dean doesn't cheat because I hate stories where that happens so our Dean here will always be loyal to his girl...pissed, but loyal!**

 **Mandy, I went back and reread some of the first Lauren/Dean story the other day to help me remember some points and it made me realise how much I've made Lauren grow. I mean, look at her now on commentary like a big girl! Glad you love her as much as I do!**

 **Labinnacslove, Well, Dean isn't known for his cool head, but Roman is and he's going to put it to good use in this chapter too! Dean is pissed because he's frightened I figure and which is often how men deal with their emotions (*ahem* badly!)**

 **Minnie1015, Important question...sweet or salty popcorn? (One of those answers is right and the other one is wrong by the way!) Dean's brain huh? Yeah, probably pretty scary but mostly filled up with thoughts of punching people,** _ **sexy time**_ **and puppy dogs I guess!**

 **Skovko, Luckily I think Dean has spent enough time drinking over the years to be able to hold his liquor pretty well, but then again, maybe I'm going to be really mean and made things worse all over again? Or maybe I'll make them better? Or maybe...ah, you get the idea!**

 **LunaticxLass, Yep, it's a bit of a mess at the moment and both of them kind of think they're in the right, which I guess in many ways the both of them are! I've sure painted them into a tight corner. Might make it a little bit tighter first in this chapter though, but only for the sake of tension!**

 **Roman for president then...**

* * *

 **The Dog House Blues**

I stood in the corner of the lobby feeling miserable while Roman got the spare key from the blonde behind the desk, who giggled just a little as he batted his big browns at her, then paused for about a second before handing the card across.

"I shouldn't do this really – ,"

Roman took it from her grinning and then threw her a wink to ham up his smooth façade and it turned the poor woman a myriad of colors until I almost wanted to shout _he's married_ loudly and break it up.

Roman kept on schmoozing,

"I'm gonna owe you now baby girl."

Her squeal of a titter could have probably shattered glass and made my head stop pounding dully and actually begin to stab instead, like someone was trying to jam a pickaxe behind my eyeballs and then pluck free my hypothalamus.

It wasn't a nice thing.

"Ugh."

My displeasure cut loudly across the space in between us and then seemed to echo off the deserted lobby walls, so that both my boyfriend's teammate and the woman could hear it and at which point both their gazes spun briefly my way. Roman at least looked concerned at my moaning and it probably didn't help that I was slumped against the doors but the blonde merely narrowed her false lashes in my direction and then set up a glare that could have frozen over hell.

Like I could have cared less.

Roman tapped the card briskly and it clacked out a noise on the top of the desk, throwing the girl a last look of generosity, before picking the bags back up and hurrying my way.

"Thanks again."

It was a call across his shoulder, but it managed to bring the smile back to her face and she even threw in a wave like he actually might miss her as he hooked my elbow and steered me into the elevator bay.

I frowned at him darkly as the doors slid shut on us,

"Does that mean you call every woman baby girl?"

He smirked at me a little,

"Does that mean _you_ are feeling jealous?"

I snorted out a breath and then folded my arms roughly, flopping back against the shiny metal of the interior wall and then rolling my eyes at him like the teasing brother that he was. Only a week earlier there had been _two_ people who had done that and who had spent their time lovingly baiting me back and forth. Now there was just him as a surrogate sibling and the thought made me sad and huffy all over again.

"Not as jealous as it would make your _actual_ baby girl."

I was talking about either his daughter or his wife and knowing it he smiled in an expression that lit his face up and then shook his head wryly,

"I have other names for them."

"So then you _do_ call every woman baby girl – not just me."

He slung an arm around my shoulder and hauled me in close, letting me pillow my temple down on his breastbone and then kneading his fingers tightly into my arm, holding me there and giving me a permanence that I might not otherwise have had. For the most part he was a big old teddy bear and pretty much just as huggy but fierce as a tiger when his loved ones were being harmed. He was solid and true and devoted to his partner, regardless of the way he flirted at times and knowing that devotion helped to make him such a comfort and was the reason he made me feel so completely safe and warm.

He chuckled a little,

"Okay, maybe sometimes, but the only difference is I mean it with you."

"Smooth talker."

He laughed out loudly at that one, then used his broad palm to push me ahead as the doors pinged brightly then slid themselves open to reveal a long corridor lined with the standard patterned trim. Honestly, sometimes I had to wonder if every hotel in the country hadn't sat down at a summit and pledged to use the same awful weave, because while swirling carpets had been banned from people's houses, in the hospitality trade they were still alive and well and it messed with my poor head every step to where the room was, which made me grumble even more.

" _Ugh_ , stupid shag pile."

"Nearly there baby girl."

Roman made me stop at a door near the stairwell, tugging on my elbow to stop my padding footsteps then reaching around me to insert the card into the lock, waiting a beat for the light to turn green before flipping the handle and flinging it wide. I trudged in past him and into the darkness, using the hallway lights as a gloomy sort of guide and making a beeline for the glowing white comforter which I then toppled onto with a mutter, face-first.

"So tired."

Behind me Roman switched the lights on and I complained about it audibly as the brightness burnt through, although since there wasn't a workable way around it, he left them on, pulled the bags in, then pushed shut the door.

My eyes snapped shut and I nuzzled the sheet folds.

How had my life come down to this?

Lying on a bed in the middle of nowhere with my life a pile of tatters and my boyfriend out on the loose and possibly tracking down and murdering his former brother or else getting into some pointless drunken fight in a bar. There was a trace of his aftershave lingering on the pillow and I hauled myself towards it and buried my face in, inhaling the scent like it was some sort of heightened oxygen and then promptly from out of nowhere, beginning to sob again.

"Hey, hey now – ,"

Roman moved towards me and the bed depressed heavily as he sat his bulk down, making me roll in towards him like a beach ball and planting me with an actual smack into his side. His hands fell down to hold me gently and his fingers rubbed broadly and sort of cluelessly across my back, since I guessed that crying women weren't really his forte, which brought him broadly in line with the remainder of the male world.

Except for Dean that was –

He always knew how to comfort me and remembering that anew only made me cry more, although I felt mildly embarrassed about dragging my big friend into it and so I tried to explain through my hot, trailing sobs.

"What – what if he doesn't love me anymore now? What if he n-never t-trusts me again?"

"Baby girl, you know that isn't gonna happen, he's steamed that's all, his ass will come around."

"How – how do you know that?"

"Because I've known him for a while now, so _trust me_ when I say that I've never seen him like this. Being with you is the happiest he's been ever. You complete him and all those mushy sayings like that. So this being angry with you thing? It isn't permanent, he's only pissed right now because he's scared he can't keep you safe. He's crazy about you and that ain't changing."

For a second I thought he might throw in a _believe that_ but instead he only very sweetly palmed my hair back and then patted my shoulder like a father with a child.

"I l-love him so much."

"Nobody's doubting that, not even him."

"I just wanted to be close."

Pushing myself upright I wriggled into a sit beside him and roughly swiped away my increasing itchy tears, ending up smearing mascara across my fingers and probably managing to make myself look a total mess. Roman seemed not to mind too much though and so I butted up against him and dropped my sad head onto his arm, just sitting for a moment and focusing on my breathing so as not to freak him out with girly crying anymore.

"I mean, I honestly didn't think in my wildest dreams _ever_ that Vince would actually go for my plan, then suddenly there he is with a contract and a pen and things, telling me we needed to head off for the airport and I just – I don't know, I kind of _panicked_ I guess."

Roman blew a sigh out,

"I wish you'd talked to us about it."

It made me drop my head down,

"I know. But then Dean would have never let me do it and I had to find a way to stay close to him somehow. Because this is my world too now and I know Dean calls me Princess, but I couldn't spend the rest of my life locked in a tower. I guess being on commentary just seemed like the safest option."

Roman snorted wryly,

"Baby girl, you're not wrong and just because uce ain't here to shout about it, I'm gonna say it now, that was a pretty kickass move."

I blinked,

"It was?"

" _Hell_ yeah, so don't sweat it – ,"

He suddenly stood without warning from the bed and the momentum of it shot the mattress back upwards and slung my body pretty violently to the right. I landed again in the aftershave scented pillow but pushed upright in confusion as I watched him cross the room.

"Um, where are you going?"

He paused beside the nightstand and then reached down to flip on the light, blending the sharp harsh beam of the overheads with the sudden warm orange of the little beige lamp. Moving towards the door, he flicked the main bulb off and at once the dazzling brightness tapered off into a glow.

My pounding headache thanked him immensely.

He paused on the threshold,

"I'm gonna go bring uce home."

I sat up straighter and my heart lurched a little in excitement and gratitude and fear all in one, because no matter how many times the big guy tried to tell me that my boyfriend was in love with me and always _would_ be, the crushing fear of loneliness or having upset him would never _not_ be the base emotion that took control.

"You are?"

"Uh huh, but first I'm gonna lay the law down."

"Meaning what exactly?"

Roman offered back a grin and then cracked his knuckles in a way that was alarming but also flushed through with something firm and resolute, like he was planning on showing some tough love to his brother and which made me falter slightly,

He wasn't going to hurt him, right?

Evidently sensing some of my bewilderment and possibly a hint of my anxiety as well, the bigger man let his warm smile widen and then threw me a wink,

"I'm gonna make him apologize."

"Um, good luck, he has a policy about that."

It wasn't just a policy either but an actual vow that never in his life would Dean Ambrose say sorry even if he'd done something totally wrong or messed up somehow, besides which wasn't I the one with the apology since it had been my bright idea to take the commentary job?

"You just get some rest now baby girl, you hear me?"

Roman pointed with purpose at my abandoned pink case in a clear instruction to get into my bedclothes and try to get some shut eye like he had promised his teammate I would. In response to my nod, he stepped towards the threshold and twisted the handle before pausing in the hall and then turning back to snort at me fondly and offer a final sentence,

"Everything will be okay."

Then he shut the door and left me sitting in the half-light whereupon I folded back and shut my eyes.

"I hope you're right."

For perhaps the next half hour or longer, I lay on the sheets falling in and out of sleep, trying to make my weary body co-operate and get up and get changed each time I woke and blinked into the light. But it just didn't happen because whenever I sat upright, I was hit by a wave of exhaustion again and so only ever managed to drink in the alarm clock and what time it was before folding straight back.

 _Ugh_.

How were the minutes ticking by so slowly?

I wondered idly where my angry boyfriend was and then tried to imagine what drunken state he might return in, as well as what I hoped I would get the chance to say, not straying too far from my teary theme from earlier, in which I had looked remorseful and apologized a lot.

"Where are you Dean?"

It was the thought that drove me upright when the clock beeped mildly for sometime _early o'clock_ and which synced itself completely with my bra trying to kill me as my ribs protested heavily for having worn it for so long.

"Ow, _crap_."

I fought it loose roughly and flung it across the room like some nuclear bomb, letting it flutter off into the distance and then just hoping that in the morning I remembered to pick it up, instead of perhaps accidentally leaving it for the housekeeping staff to have to pick up with a pair of rubber gloves. Considering I was up, I then shuffled into my bedclothes which was a pretty lengthy process that sapped my fading strength and was followed by a laborious pad into the bathroom, to roughly scrub all of the blotted makeup off my face,

"There," I murmured lazily, "All done."

I stumbled back over to the bed in a daydream, but was just in time to catch my phone showing an incoming call and so launched myself across the covers frantically towards it in a hope against hope that it was contact from Dean, or maybe even Roman letting me know that he had found him.

Instead it was a random number.

Uh oh.

Did I pick up?

It was probably best to since it could have been a bar owner who had my boyfriend sprawled on the floor, or possibly the police or that whole _one call from jail_ thing, so I pressed the green button with my heart pounding,

"Hello?"

"Hey – ,"

 _Holy cow_.

I would have known the voice anywhere and the unpalatable grumble cut through me like a knife, lodging my central nervous system up behind my eyeballs as my whole entire body succumbed to the sudden chill.

Hunter had called me.

My teeth clenched on instinct and I then had to physically force myself to speak, praying pretty wildly that I sounded foreboding but aware that the words were spat with a frightened little squeak.

Drat.

"What do you want?"

"Do you think I need a reason?"

His voice was cool and eerily calm, but still carried enough of its usual swagger to put me right onto the fringes of alarm. I hadn't spoken to my backstabbing parent since the night he had forced himself into the locker room and then proceeded to flat out disbelieve me when I told him that his protegee had tried to attack me when he'd been drunk. From that moment on our general contact had been narrowed down to little more than a series of glares and the battle lines had been drawn then made legally binding in the matches that had followed between his lackeys and my boys.

My breath stuck in my throat somewhat pathetically.

 _God_ I really wanted Dean, who no doubt would have ripped the cell phone straight off me and unloaded bloody threats the likes of which I'd never known, but would have made me feel at least all safe and protected instead of borderline panicky like I actually was.

I frowned into the empty room,

"I've got nothing to say to you."

"Not a nice way to start a chat with your old man."

He seemed to be enjoying saying things to frustrate me and it chased away my worry in a sudden burst of rage, which made me wonder idly if Dean wasn't rubbing off on me, even though the prospect of me swearing brutal murder were probably still at least a few years away.

My fists clenched tightly,

"You're _not_ my father, a real parent would never have done what you did to me, keeping me locked up like some kind of prisoner and then leaving me and – oh – have you forgotten that you _drugged_ me as well?"

Hunter sighed heavily,

"I was trying to protect you,"

"From the man who loves me and keeps me safe, right?"

My tones were harsh and dripping with disdainfulness, because I couldn't quite believe he was still banging that drum, whereby he could seemingly square away his hatefulness by convincing himself that captivity had been the right move and that his totally misplaced and full-bodied hatred for my boyfriend was reason enough to scar his own child for life.

He chose not to answer,

"How is your head feeling?"

It came out so suddenly that I faltered and then stalled, because frankly I had been silently pumping for a showdown and so menial _health chatter_ kind of threw out that groove.

"Um, I don't – what?"

"You took quite blow there, how long did they say before you're all fully healed?"

"Why? Thinking of kidnapping and torturing me a second time?"

He growled in frustration,

"I'm simply concerned – ,"

" _Ha_."

My bark of laughter was a sharp and derisive one and it echoed out loudly around the dim room, essentially saying all the things that words couldn't, as well as standing in for the more volatile _bullshit_. I couldn't believe for a second that he was serious and that belief bled through nicely and made me laugh a few times more, stressing with contempt that I wasn't remotely buying it and making him angry.

I heard him bang down his fist,

"Damn it, you're my kid and you ended up in hospital, do you really think that I wouldn't be at least a little upset?"

My head dropped into my hand feeling delirious and I shook my face against it then swept my hair back, pushing the strands up away from my features and then flipping them over to find something to do, besides for example, punching the bedsheets or kicking at the vanity which would have probably really hurt.

 _Huh_.

Maybe my boyfriend was rubbing off on me after all?

Behind my eyes my poor brain was spinning with the footage of the moment from just seven days before and in particular the image of my sledgehammer wielding father walking backwards up the rampway and grinning like a loon, in spite of the fact that I was down and unconscious and regardless of the multitude of panicked medics running down. I couldn't forget it and I couldn't forgive it, but seeing it again in my mind sapped my fight,

"You were laughing."

"What?"

My voice had been a whisper and so I wasn't surprised that he couldn't really hear and more than that it also seemed quite obvious he wasn't following and so I drew a deep breath in and battled my tears down.

"When you were walking away last week you laughed at me, you – you didn't look worried at all."

His voice vaguely softened,

"But that wasn't the real me, that was a work, I was on _camera_."

Yep –

There it was.

No matter what deep shit was happening around him or what was being done to the people he loved, his business front and his showmanship would always win out over it and he would break up his relationships to keep his bullish façade up. In the scheme of things however my being his blood wasn't important, or at least, not when that red taping light was switched on. Dean on the other hand hadn't even faltered and nor had he _any_ of the times I had been hurt. He had never cared for so much as a minute who had been watching because if I was somewhere hurt then _that_ was always his number one. I shook my head again,

"You never even called me."

"I had people in the hospital who let me know how you were."

I snorted in response to that new piece of information, but it wasn't a very encouraging sound because frankly I was past the stage of unquestioningly believing him, or stupidly drinking in every last thing he said. Maybe a few months ago I would have trustingly bought it, but sitting in my hotel room all I could hear from him were lies. My response was cutting,

"Oh please, you're not the mafia, you don't have _people in the hospital_."

"But I knew you were conscious and okay."

"Seth told you that."

In reality I was fast feeling done with all the talking, since not only was it upsetting me but it was hurting me as well, as in _physically hurting_ my still throbbing cranium as the noise and the stress and the tension all built up. In fact, I was so deeply entrenched in all the painfulness that I very briefly missed the next thing he said and so responded with a none-too-graceful sounding sort of _huh_ noise which he greeted with a sigh but then repeated again,

"I said it's not too late to change which side you're on here, I know that Ambrose is pissed you went behind his back to Vince – ,"

 _Damn him_.

How the hell did he know that? More than likely one of his lackeys had been hovering around the halls and looking and listening for the happy sounds of discord between my usually doting boyfriend and I. In response I drew my knees up and tried to quell my anger,

"Dean wants me safe, that's why he's so mad."

"If he leaves you kiddo – ,"

I snarled at him,

" _Don't_ call me that, he's coming back right now."

"Do you really believe that?"

My fingers curled in around my cell phone so tightly that they started to seize up under the power of the grip, tears pouring long down my face as I spluttered in a half-scream, half-sob before I finally hung up, layering every last word with conviction and hoping they weren't wholly as empty as they felt and that Roman had succeeded where I had failed miserably.

I _needed_ my boyfriend.

"Dean is coming back."

* * *

 **Last chapter next time then folks, so time to place your bets on what's going to happen and if I'm going to be nice to you (and them) or cruel, as usual there will also be information on their next saga because evidently when it comes to them, I'm a writing machine!**


	15. I'm Your Baby Tonight

**Okay, so we come to the end of this story but hopefully we're going to bow out on a high! Details on the follow up story at the bottom and of course, I couldn't sign this off without saying THANK YOU to all my readers and ESPECIALLY my reviewers who make me smile through both the good times and the bad. Couldn't do this without you guys, I mean that!**

 **xXBalorBabeXx, Hopefully Dean in this chapter will make up for him not being on TV. On the plus side though, Kurt said he's nearly back and Seth said late spring, which could be anytime now. Let's cross our fingers together, more luck that way! Thank you for all your reviews, so much!**

 **Wolfgirl2013, Aww, thank you so much and thank you for once again supporting my work and upping my reviews, which I always think helps to draw other people in. Glad you liked it and hopefully this chapter will finish it off nicely...until next time of course!**

 **Mandy, Oh no! I'm so sorry. Clearly they don't know what they're missing. It may not seem like it now but sometimes the best can come from the worst, even if it takes time. Glad I could help but you help me too, by always being so supportive and leaving such lovely reviews *big hugs***

 **Minnie1015, Bzzzzz, sorry, the answer is sweet, say it with me now! Oh who am I kidding? I buy ice cream at the movies anyway. Have your salty if it makes you happy! Hunter is a conflicted kinda guy isn't he? Especially in the next story... Now finally, as ever thank you for my reviews!**

 **Labinnacslove, Yeah, Dean could never stay away too long. But is he happy or is he mad? As for Hunter, well, the McMahon Helmsley household had never really known when to quit has it? Playing party games with them must be fun! Super glad to have you back, thanks for the reviews!**

 **Skovko, Nope, Father of the Year 2014 is totally nothing that Hunter is in the running for since he's being a typical hopeless man and not being able to say the words 'I care.' Lucky that our Lauren knows her Dean better. Or at least she** _ **thinks**_ **she does. As ever my lovely, thanks for reviewing!**

 **LunaticxLass, Haha, well you might be right on the Roman side of things. I always imagine him to be the most sensible. Thank goodness he's there! Hunter is...ugh, he's Hunter always will be! But for now, I want to say thank you so much for reviewing and hopefully I'll see you at the next one?!**

 **For the last time on this go then...**

* * *

 **I'm Your Baby Tonight**

I feel asleep feeling pretty much like I'd been sucker punched –

Not helped an awful lot by the sheer amount I cried and the fact that the tears were the big, itchy hot ones that tore down my face like a never ending stream and mingled with my nose until my full face was plastered with bodily fluids and deep misery blubs.

 _Ugh_.

How on earth had I fallen so heavily and what had I done to merit having such wild lows? Maybe I had murdered a prostitute in a past life or kicked a puppy or turned a turtle upside down. Either way I had to have done something terrible, because otherwise why was I going through the mill?

First my mother and then my father –

Both of them one way or another had been lost and on each of those occasions I had been forced into grieving and moving on without the paternal love they had held out. My mom especially had been the worst of those two endings and losing her had pretty much ripped me apart, finding my father therefore had been special and had briefly helped to fill a tiny part of that loss. But when I had met him, he had been big and charming and loving and protective like I had wanted and more. His fall from grace and from my life had been brutal, but he hadn't been ripped away.

Instead he had _walked_.

Dean had too although I hoped it wasn't permanent but still the thoughts tore at me –

Maybe I wasn't good enough?

If one or two people had left after knowing me, then I was pretty much able to chalk it up to bad luck, but the more and more my loved ones washed their hands of me, the more I had to figure that there was something _I_ had done.

Perhaps I didn't deserve to find someone?

Perhaps it was my destiny to be on my own?

I buried my head into the pillow and bawled again but at least on that occasion I seemed to manage to cry it out, since I eventually fell into a baffled exhaustion that dragged me right through to the following dawn. In fact, I didn't wake until a hand palmed my hair back and the bed depressed a little to my left although because I was so gone none of the movements seemed to register and neither did the very gently smiling sounding tones,

"Princess?"

"Wha – ?"

Dean's aftershave seemed stronger but I assumed it was still seeping from his pillow's soft folds and therefore merely twisted myself in deeper and blew a breath out to try and get back to sleep.

"Lauren? Princess, you wanna open those eyes for me?"

" _Hmmm_ , okay."

I made the move in a haze but was rewarded not only with the grey light of morning but also the bright blue blaze of my boyfriend's loving orbs and the feeling of his rough thumbs gently stroking my cheekbones, which was lovely but confusing.

"Is – is this a dream?"

He snorted at me,

"Nope, real life baby."

"You came back?"

I sounded pretty spaced and it made the lips turn until the dimples popped at which point actual butterflies lit up in my soul and something warm and safe tingled through me and cut in softly through the post-exhaustion folds, because surely that meant he was actually there in front of me? In the interests of checking, I poked at one.

"Oh."

Yep –

 _Real_.

Dean batted my hand down but caught my fingers and then wrapped them in his, lifting them up then very gently kissing them until the butterflies took flight and dragged my heart into my throat. Bursts of elation fired through my system and I struggled against the bedclothes to roll onto my back, needing to get a better view of him fiercely and not ready for a second to let him out of my beady sight.

"Yeah, I came back – was never gonna leave my best girl."

"But you were so mad."

I whispered the sentence out, partly because I assumed it was still early morning and I was worried that my bellowing might wake the neighbors up and partly because my head was still spinning and feeling pretty tender not to mention sleep-fogged.

Dean sucked a breath in,

"You got me pretty amped up, had to get outta there and cool myself off."

"Did you get drunk?"

He rolled his eyes at that line but kept his lips quirked upwards to show he wasn't annoyed, then leaned in closer and kissed at my nose tip while blowing out a breath that carried mild alcohol vibes. He shrugged at me idly,

"Maybe one or two beers, tops, but I'm not drunk Princess, I know what I'm doin' here, alright?"

In response to his answer I nodded back mutely and then unclenched the nervous fists balled against my sides, because somehow he had known exactly what I was thinking and had moved to quell my fears before I even got them out.

He wasn't forgiving me because of the alcohol.

He was sober and still loved me.

 _Wow_.

Thank god.

In the moment the revelation was such a relief to me that I actually blew out a happy little laugh and then proceeded to frighten us _both_ wildly by suddenly and without warning breaking down into hot tears. Dean blinked at me,

"Whoa, Princess what's happenin'?"

I reached forward sobbing brokenly and grabbed a hold of his shirt, using it to pull myself up shaking badly and then throwing myself forwards and into his chest, hauling in a shuddering breath of his manliness and the mixture of sweat and spicy cologne. His arms wrapped in around me and held me to him gently and he rubbed my back as well, although he still seemed alarmed,

"Easy baby, m' back, m' here now."

"I – I'm so sorry f-for doing what I – I did."

Dean snorted roughly,

"Yeah, well that's a two way street here, that wasn't all on you baby, I kinda freaked out."

"But you h-had every right to."

I was soaking his vest top shirt front and probably painting it with snot trails as well and nor was the breakdown doing _me_ any favors considering all the blubbing had made the headache re-emerge. Frankly I wondered if the thumping would ever leave me, or whether my life would be forever migraine filled, like those people who sneezed for years without stopping or ended up having hiccups for decades in a row?

Dean carded my hair,

"You shoulda talked to me about it, but then again maybe I should have tried talkin' to you."

"About w-what?"

"'Bout what _you_ wanted Princess, 'stead I just kinda decided that shit for you and accordin' to Roman that makes me a jackass an' a couple other words I'd just as soon not repeat, well, not in front of your little _small town girl_ ears anyway, told you before baby, I don't wanna fuck you up."

For a moment or two I simply nestled against his collarbone, barely even noticing as he rocked us back and forth, mostly because I was breathing his scent in and revelling in his touch, but mainly thanks to the sobs. Gradually they were clearing but I was still sort of snuffling and so it took me a little longer to filter through what he had said, at which point I blinked and then cleared my stuffy throat out to clarify something,

"Roman found you?"

"Sure did, read me the fuckin' riot act an' everythin', talkin' about you bein' a grown ass woman and bein' able to decide what you wanted to do – ,"

I shook my head,

"But – but I _should_ have told you."

"An' I shoulda made you feel like you could."

I frowned in response, but the narrowing of my eyebrows was decidedly playful instead of desolate, proven by me brushing the rest of my tears off and giggling at him a little even though I was still bunged up.

"Is this – is this you _apologizing_ to me? Because I'm pretty sure you told me that you don't really do that and I know you said you weren't drunk or anything but I think maybe you _have_ to be since – ,"

He leaned closer,

"Princess? Shush."

His lips then fell over me and pushed me over backwards and I collapsed down under them into the bedclothes soft folds, humming out my usual note of contentment and then wrapping my fingers tight around his warm neck and running my nails through the stubble above his collar like I was trying to memorize every inch of his form.

Maybe I was?

I had been hours without him and every last second had been a moment too long, having him back felt powerful and desperate and it was frankly touch and go if I would ever loosen my grip again. Dean however seemed every bit as covetous and if his lips were an indication, then he was keen to make things up, sucking my own until they throbbed beneath the power and then sliding in his tongue like he was trying to create a mould. His lips were moist and slick and beautiful and more than any other sense, they sort of felt like home. I forced another tear back and it made me bite him lightly to which he grunted in surprise at and then simply carried on,

"Fuck I missed you Princess."

Dean was panting and as he came up for breath I _did_ choke a sob out, before hauling him back by the front of his vest top and meshing us both together in a wet and messy hold.

 _Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you_.

I wasn't even sure who I was saving my thanks for and whether I owed it all to our big dog of a brother, or whether the wider universe hadn't played their hand, or maybe thrown in some intervention from my mother.

Mom –

Hunter.

I suddenly tensed, although my boyfriend took the parting of our lips as a stop gap and pulled away breathless but beautifully bright eyed. In the moment his grin chased away my vague worry at the knowledge that I was going to have to tell him about the call and I frowned at his excitement which made my own smile widen as he pecked me on the forehead and then scrambled off,

"I – uh – I bought 'cha somethin' baby."

"You did?"

"Uh huh, that's kinda why m' back so late, I had to wait for the fuckin' stores to open, wanna see it?"

I nodded in confusion,

"Um, sure."

Before I could pause or reconsider my options, he had stumbled to his feet and was speeding across the room, heading for the chair over which he'd draped his jacket and moving with a sudden urgency that I couldn't quite place.

I sucked in a breath.

 _Go on Lauren, get it over with_.

"Hunter called."

Dean froze on the spot and then spun around in slow motion towards me, with the hazy blue eyes tapered into something sharp and it made me shiver because _god_ how I had missed it and the way he almost instantly filled with alpha maleness and alarm.

"He called here?"

"Um, no, he – he rang me."

"Did he upset you?"

"Kind of,"

His gaze was burning across the room and filling me whole with love and protection and it made me huff a breath which he mistook for concern or perhaps some form of latent aggravation since he tightened his jaw and then growled.

"What did he say?"

"Not a lot really – ,"

"Princess, I can handle it so just give it to me straight."

I looked down to my hands which were pooled in the covers and then shrugged in off handedness, not too sure what to say and feeling horrible for having brought the mood back down again thanks to my hugely crappy family getting in the way.

"Um, the same old hokum really, like how he was trying to protect me and all that bit, then he asked how my head was feeling and said that he was actually really concerned – ," I broke off to snort in total derision and then waved my hand around like it would fill in the gaps and Dean shook his head in response and bit a snarl down which was his general reaction at the mere mention of my old man, "He kinda told me that I could still join them, he – um – he said you weren't coming home."

I tangled my fingers and then flinched at the rejoinder,

"God damn fuckin' _asshole_."

Well –

He wasn't wrong.

Instead of continuing to rampage however or even tearing off to pace around the room while trying to punch at cushions or soft furnishings, my boyfriend surprised me by coming in close and then falling down onto the mattress beside me while pulling me into a tight and loving hug. I went with it happily and leaned in against him, wrapping my arms around his small but firm waist.

"I'm so glad you're back."

"I would never have left 'ya, I mean, I was all pissed sure, but I still love you more 'n _life_."

"I know."

"An' that's why I got so fuckin' heated earlier, because I just wanna keep you away from their crap. Don't deserve any of what you get right, you know that? You're too fuckin' sweet to take this shit all the time. First Bray, then Steph, then Hunter now fuckin' _Rollins_? I can't lose you baby."

I shook my head against his chest,

"You won't I promise, commentary is my safe place."

He snorted,

"Yeah right."

"No seriously it is, I mean earlier during the match, Rowan came in towards me then just _stopped_."

Dean blew out a breath and then cupped my face to gently pull it away from him so that he could look at me for the first time and the closeness of his scent and every _bit_ of him made me hum again happily because I loved him being near.

"My girl is the first full-time female announcer, huh?"

I grinned in confirmation and then giggled,

"So I'm told."

"You know if I wasn't still kinda pissed about it, I might even be fuckin' _glowin_ ' with pride right?"

In replied by dropping my head back against him and nuzzling my weary head deep against his abs, fashioning myself a sort of pillow against his shirt folds and then letting my shoulders slump as the tiredness took control. In the grey light of morning the world seemed simpler, like the dark gloom of night had made everything seem worse and the tell-tale heat of another day of summer was beginning to creep in through the gaps in the drapes.

Life just seemed like it was safe again –

 _Bearable_.

Darkness washed over me and I succumbed to its hold but only for a second as Dean suddenly bumped me gently and brought my head up with a startled and slightly groggy sounding _huh_. His rough tones were all awkward,

"I haven't shown you what I bought you."

I blinked and then rubbed at my eyes,

"Oh, no."

He fumbled around for a moment in his pocket and then seemed to get whatever it was caught up inside, which produced an angry and not unlikely string of cuss words that made me giggle and earnt me some side eye.

Dean raised a brow,

"You think this is funny?"

"Kind of."

"In that case I don't think you deserve it after all."

Furthering case he pulled his hand out empty and then pretended to descend into a teenager style huff except I knew he was teasing and so launched across the bedsheets, digging my fingers in his pocket and protesting lustily,

"Dean, come on, let me see."

He sat still and held his hands up, letting me rummage around inside and my fingers found a velvet box and quickly closed around it, laughing at his craziness as I wrestled it loose. Possibly because he put them on so often and then got flung around the ring in them, the lining of his pants was torn, holding the little pouch firm in its thread strands, which I had to unwind before I could finally wrench it out. It looked like a jewellery case in the daylight and I frowned at it a little as my heart pounded.

 _Huh_?

Dean stayed silent but I could see he was watching and that a sort of anxiety had taken a fierce hold. He didn't move to stop me, so I therefore flipped it open and then gaped in astonishment –

I was looking at a ring.

It was a very simple band in silver that was twisted and then studded at intervals by tiny little stones. I swallowed down a lump and then slowly glanced up at him, since surely it couldn't be what I was beginning to think it was.

Right?

Dean sucked a breath in and then blew it out shakily, reaching forward to take my hand in his, he plucked away the box and then took the ring out carefully before shrugging his shoulders,

"Uh, look, I know what I said back when we talked about this, an' I told you I would do this shit properly and stuff, but it turns out, I don't actually _know_ how to do this an' Roman's always sayin' how it will _feel right_ an' – I dunno – last night, when I had cooled off an' everythin' I got around to thinkin' 'bout why I was so mad, an' I kinda figured out it's because I'm stuck on you an' there's no fuckin' way I could ever let you go – ,"

I sniffed again and murmured his name reverently, not in a question but as an exhalation of love,

"Dean,"

He carried on regardless,

"So I guess what it comes down to, is you drive me fuckin' crazy and I worry about you every single freakin' day, I worry when you're makin' your toast in the mornin' that you're gonna accidentally burn down the house, I worry when you come down the stairs that you'll miss one and I worry like fuckin' crazy when you're anywhere near the ring. But when it comes down to it, that shit's because I love ya, so I guess what m' gettin' at is – y' know – you wanna be my wife?"

In real terms he was more than likely looking for an answer, but I couldn't form the word he needed to hear said, because my heart was pounding and I was crying with happiness, although I nodded at least and then surged closer to him,

" _Yes_."

He seemed surprised,

"Really, y' mean that?"

I laughed in elation and wrapped my arms around his neck, squeezing him and squealing and shaking him roughly like some sort of ragdoll with pristine rock hard abs. Pulling myself back, I pressed my palms to his cheekbone and then started to pepper kisses over his face, repeating my answer every time I resurfaced and buzzing with so much energy I genuinely felt drunk,

"Yes, yes, yes, yes."

I only stopped the contact when he suddenly dropped me back, taking us both down onto the pillows and then kissing me properly in a full lip-to-lip. Reaching across, he slid the ring onto my finger and in some divine miracle it slotted on like a glove, which I blinked at in confusion until my boyfriend – my fiancée and _wow_ I liked the sound of that – noted my look and shrugged back idly, like the whole thing was no big deal.

"Worked out your ring size months ago."

"Months?"

He smiled,

"Don't write me off Princess, I can be a pretty sneaky little bastard at times."

Looking across I held my hand upright and then wiggled my fingers until it sparkled in the light, taking the early morning beams and reflecting them into tiny little rainbows that lit up in my eyes.

" _Ugh_ , it's so beautiful."

"M' just pleased you fuckin' like it, took me – like – _forever_ to pick, Roman fell asleep."

"Roman was with you?"

I grunted in surprise because were my boys ever sly and also totally fantastically wonderful and in particular the man hanging over my face and gazing down at me with such care and devotion that he made me want to cry all over again.

How in the world had I gotten so lucky?

I thumbed his cheek gently,

"You're sure about this?"

He leaned in closer and kissed me sweetly before folding down on top of me and covering me whole, tucking my head into the crook of his neckline and then gently brushing back my long brown hair. His breathing tickled my skin and I giggled, then reached down to tangle our fingers as one. Dean's gruff tones were deep and grumbly,

"I fuckin' love you Princess, so yeah m' sure, okay?"

My voice was on the edge of a whisper, because honestly there was no _way_ I wouldn't cry again at that, but on a much deeper level too life just seemed _golden_ and that was down to one person.

My fiancée.

"Love you back and then some."

* * *

 **Like I would have ended on a bad note! Nope. Looks like our kids are finally engaged! Thank you everyone for following this pairing through with me, more to come yet and on that note…**

 **The next story for these two is possibly my favourite. It's going to be called** _ **Dearly Beloved**_ **. I'm going to post a quick follow up to my Squeaker story first (if anyone read that) but then I'll move straight back to Dean and Lauren in the first few weeks of June so anyone who's interested, keep your eyes peeled for the next crazy!**


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